Godchaser
by Emerald Viper
Summary: Falsely accused of a crime, a formerly prestigious jeweler seeks refuge in an Immaculate monastery. When a Dragonlord brings the abbot an unusual artifact, his life is turned upside-down. This is the story of "Recluse", the Twilight Cast of Alexander's circle. A companion piece to "Alexander the Great".
1. Chapter 1 - Master Ilumio

**Please, don't cry if you hate the changes! Nothing is gone for good! **

**I still have the old versions of these stories, but I am uploading the second drafts with formatting and grammar corrections. I am not sure if all of the changes improve the story or not. I like some parts of this story much better now, so I hope you will too.  
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**My reason for updating these old stories is in response to comments and criticism. Also, I have been writing lots of subsequent stories and want to keep the continuity as clean as possible from beginning to end. I really do appreciate critiques and I am sorry about inconsistency with American and British spelling. I am working on using only American spelling. **

**Thanks for reading, and I PROMISE I will finish Heaven Sent Sword! (It has turned into such a pain to write, but it should get a nice epic ending with Sidereal, Dragonblood, and mortal heroes instead of Solars). I am not going to lie, I usually like the Solars better. ^_^  
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****- Emerald Viper**  
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**Chapter 1 – Master Ilumio**

I was lying on the ground underneath a hay wagon in an undignified position when I first caught sight of The Scarlet Legion. Rumors traveled like wildfire across the countryside, so I was not precisely surprised to see a large number of Imperial soldiers. I stared at them anyway. It had been five years since I'd last witnessed Scarlets in action and I'd almost forgotten how impressive they always looked. It was as if they were about to fearlessly charge an army of demons at any moment, even when they were only climbing a little hill.

Barely wide enough for a cart, the old mountain road that the soldiers traveled led from the Imperial City all the way to the Abbey of Mela. Of the many bastions of the Immaculate Order, the Abbey of Mela is the most remote, located atop the single highest point of the Blessed Isle... or at least the highest point that anyone has ever managed to build something on. Word had it that Dragonlord Cathak Chiron and his Scarlets were bringing an important gift for Abbot Manu. Curious by nature, I'd volunteered my services in the nearby village of Smoke for the past three days, hoping to see the great Dragonlord whom some swore would soon take the throne.

I scrambled to my feet as The Scarlets approached and bowed appropriately when they stopped. I knew immediately which one of them was Dragonlord Chiron, although I had never actually met him. He was a middle-aged Fire-Aspect whose exceptional poise made it very obvious that he was _always _on important business.

Riding at the Dragonlord's left was an ugly bureaucrat with a round face and a long hooked nose. He wore a tiny pair of dark glasses and the simple black robes of a middle-level government official. I thought I recognized him, and so I bowed very low, hoping he had not gotten a good look at my face. In the past, I'd had more than a little trouble with the law, and although I could no longer be prosecuted for my "crimes", I was not in a hurry to be slandered and abused again.

"You, monk! How far is it to The Abbey of Mela? I used to know the distance, but I've not been there in many years." Dragonlord Chiron addressed me with some annoyance in his voice. I brushed the road dirt from my clothes and attempted to compose myself.

That was when I noticed one of my ratchets had fallen out of my tool chest and was picking up momentum rolling down the hill. I stopped it with my foot, bounced it up into the air, and caught it behind my back. It was no great feat, just a simple mathematical calculation and an efficient application of martial arts training... but from the startled expression on Dragonlord Chiron's face, I gathered that what I had just done looked quite impossible.

"You're very near, Dragonlord." I admitted, pretending I had done nothing clever at all. "In fact, you will see it when you clear the top of this hill, milord."

There was a lot of whispering going on. More than a few of the Dragonlord's soldiers were apparently impressed by my little trick. The ugly bureaucrat laughed, and Dragonlord Chiron turned to him with a frown. "Something funny, Iron Lotus?"

"Did you see how he saved his little tool? Milord, this _must _be the monk that all the peasants were talking about! _The __one __who __can __fix __anything_?" Iron Lotus replied, fanning himself. He seemed to do that incessantly and it was an annoying habit. He adjusted his sunglasses and yawned, looking a bit like a lazy opium addict or a highly paid whore. The longer I stared at Iron Lotus, the more I became convinced that he and I _had _met before... and under circumstances that I did not wish to repeat.

"Is he now?" Dragonlord Chiron evaluated me with a suspicious glare. "What is your name, monk?"

"The peasants call me Recluse, Dragonlord. After the spider." I replied. Truthfully, I didn't mind my nickname. If anything, I wore it as a badge of pride. It had been very difficult to win the trust of the mountain clans, particularly since I've never been very good with words. Fortunately, one thing the locals did seem to appreciate a steady hand and a good knowledge of engineering. My little projects all over the highlands had done wonders for The Abbey of Mela's reputation. Daimyos who'd never done anything but rob monks in the past were expressing a genuine interest in Immaculate Philosophy, particularly if adopting it would get them better bridges and more effective weapons. Though I was generally opposed to violence myself, I was not too naïve to realize why the local warlords all liked my marble-shooting toys.

"Recluse? But that's not your given name, surely?" Dragonlord Chiron observed. "You're too pale to be one of these highland barbarians and your High Realm is very good. The best I've heard in this provincial backwater."

"My parents were merchants in the Imperial City, Dragonlord. I had an excellent education." I admitted truthfully. "But I am only a humble monk."

"Ahah! I _knew _I recognized you! You're Veritas Ilumio!" Iron Lotus exclaimed.

My face burned and I gritted my teeth as he called me out. Once I would have acknowledged my extremely flamboyant given name with pride... but it had been five years since I was publicly disgraced and I truthfully desired to put the past behind me. Remembering the life I'd once lead was far too painful.

"Dragonlord, this monk was once the premier jeweler of The Imperial City!" Iron Lotus continued. "Everything he touched was absolutely _exquisite! _I seem to remember that commanded exorbitant prices for his work... not that I imagine he did much of it himself, not with a dozen servants in that villa of his. He lived like a Dynast!"

I wanted to protest, but I knew that it would be futile to do so. My trial had degenerated into a public circus and the few people who even remembered my name associated it with cheating. Even after five years, nothing stung more harshly than the accusation that I'd exploited the talents of others. Like any artist, I had been attached to my work. I'd_ never _copied, and the thought of stealing something outright was even more inconceivable to me.

"Reduced to fixing wagons, are we? I suppose you have finally learned that nothing but misfortune awaits those who do not respect their true place in the Perfected Hierarchy!" Iron Lotus laughed.

It was impossible for me not to scowl at him. There was something in the way that he seized hold of my past, tore it up and threw it out for everyone to see that made me want to strangle him with incredible passion. Worse still, he didn't appear to be a Dragonblood... which meant most likely that he was what I had once been, simply a skilled mortal servant of very high standing. How could he say such things to me, if he were a mere mortal himself? Didn't he know how precarious his own position was?

"So you are the infamous tinker whom my dear friend Manu put his neck out for?" Dragonlord Chiron observed. "I had a very different picture of you in my mind."

"Oh, he was once an extravagant dresser!" Iron Lotus explained. "All those blues and golds, like some kind of exotic bird! And he had the most remarkable pocket watch! Such a genius he thought he was! Certain ignorant folks were in the habit of treating him as they would an Exalt. And this depraved little monkey allowed it! Encouraged it, even!"

"I did no such thing!" I protested, speaking out of turn.

"Iron Lotus, that's enough! Before you lecture others on their place, you would do well to consider your own!" Dragonlord Chiron scolded, slapping Lotus roughly on the back of the head.

"But of course, milord. You'll not hear another peep out of me!" Iron Lotus coughed and bowed his head slightly, adjusting his sunglasses that he had very nearly lost. That was when I recognized him. Of course, the last time I'd actually seen the man, he'd had shorter hair and a mustache... and had gone by the name "Quick-Clawed Raven". Prior to that, he'd come to see me at my home, dressed like a Sijanese exorcist with a fine necklace that he wanted me to repair. He'd introduced himself as "Himitsu" and promised me an exorbitant reward for what seemed a trifling task. And of course, it was that damned necklace which had lead to my expulsion from the Imperial City and my former profession.

Whoever he was, he was _very _good. He'd looked like a completely different person each time our paths had crossed before. Perhaps I never would have caught him at all, but his eyes were singularly unforgettable. They were still so a dark a purple as to appear almost black, and flecked with bits of silver that reminded me of stars in the night sky. When someone thoroughly ruins your life, you take great pains to remember what that person looks like. I'd drawn a sketch of him on the wall while I was in prison and pitched rocks at it to pass the time.

Gritting my teeth, I walked directly up to Himitsu and punched him squarely in the face. In his moment of surprise, I seized him by his belt and threw him off of his horse. Had he been a Dragonblood, I would have certainly been killed for such a rash action, but with him a mortal servant and myself a just _slightly _Enlightened monk... we stood on fairly equal footing. If anything, I held a slight physical advantage, having spent the better part of the last five years studying martial arts intensively.

"What is the meaning of this?" Dragonlord Chiron demanded.

"Why don't you explain, Iron Lotus? Or should I say... _Himitsu_?" I demanded. Himitsu blanched at the sound of that name and stumbled away from me, his eyes sparking with fury behind his stupid little sunglasses. I was proud to see that I'd bent them beyond repair.

"Monk, that's enough!" Dragonlord Chiron scolded me as though I were a child, which I had gathered was his preferred manner of talking to anyone who was not a Dragonblood.

"Dragonlord, that servant of yours is a villain! He's the reason I'm here, reliant on the charity of Abbot Manu!" I explained, taking care not to speak poorly of my benefactor. "He framed me for theft and almost caused me to lose my hands!"

"Nonsense! Iron Lotus has served me faithfully for..." Dragonlord Chiron paused. "That's odd. I... can't remember when I hired him." The expression on his face soured immediately as he realized that he might have been deceived himself.

Himitsu scowled.

"Dragonlord, he's _not _who you think! He has some sort of foul power that makes him seem familiar, even to strangers! Yes, his name _might _be Iron Lotus and he may be your servant, but it is just as likely that he is Quick-Clawed Raven working for House Ledaal or an exorcist called Himitsu from Sijan." I finished. "If you would heed the advice of this humble monk, I would not trust him at all."

An expression that was part shock and part fury washed over the Dragonlord's face as he turned very slowly to face his retainer. "Who are you? What have you done to me?" Dragonlord Chiron snarled. It was obvious that he'd tested my words with a Charm and found them to be true. Of course, it is very foolish to attempt to deceive a Dragonblood. The Essence that they possess, the divine energy which sets them apart from mere mortals and grants them their tremendous power and long lives also gives them ways of discerning if they are being lied to.

Some of the Scarlets immediately went for their swords. For a moment I was certain that Himitsu had reached the end of his rope, and that gave me tremendous, smug satisfaction. But then everyone froze. They hesitated for some reason.

I felt a twitch in the air myself. What had just happened?

"Oh, _Paradox_!" Himitsu cursed, probably the most unusual oath that I'd ever heard uttered before.

Fast as lighting, he bolted for the trees. The Scarlets who were mounted galloped after him, but I had a sneaking suspicion they wouldn't be able to catch him. Though I still had a burning desire to beat him to death myself, I didn't dare run off, not with the watchful eye of Abbot Manu suddenly upon me.

My years of training as a monk had made me particularly sensitive to the presence of my master, who liked to view my work. He had a strong interest in seeing how things went together and came apart but not much dexterity when it came to tiny or delicate things. If he hadn't taken the path of a monk, I suspected he would have liked to have been a tinker of some sort, of course, too lowly of a profession for any Exalted Prince of the Earth.

Abbot Manu had obviously come out to see what the commotion was out on the road and must have arrived right when I'd thrown Himitsu from his horse. He looked extraordinarily displeased. As a rule, the old Air-Aspect was as even-tempered as Dragonbloods ever were, but he was particularly sensitive about his mortal monks behaving offensively in the presence of their Enlightened superiors. More importantly, I did still owe him the use of my hands.

But that didn't matter. If I knew one thing with certainty, it was that Himitsu was already long gone. Clearly, his greatest power lay in his ability to disappear! At very least, no one had been able to find him on the day of my trial. For the life of me, I did not understand what the scoundrel was doing! He'd already ended my career and almost ended my life! What more did he want from me?

I had a sinking suspicion that I would soon find out.

I said nothing as Abbot Manu embraced Dragonlord Chiron. The Scarlets proceeded up the Abbey where they would all spend the next several days refreshing their fighting spirit. A few of their number still combed the forest looking for Himitsu, but the rest rode on quietly as their leader instructed them to, not defiling the sanctity of the monastery with cursing, shouting, or too loud laughter. They were magnificent, the most disciplined soldiers in Creation.

Himitsu was only one man, and he had no weapons or provisions. Everyone seemed confident that he would not survive long once all the local daimyos were alerted to his presence. Dragonlord Chiron seemed certain that he would be caught before sundown. Abbot Manu nevertheless sent out messengers to the closest two warlords, Lord Okafune of Smoke and Lady Tsubushima of the Snow Owl Clan, warning them that there could be a traitor to the Realm in their midst. Though Abbot Manu did not say as much, I suspected that he also sent along a bit of jade to speed along the search.

After the proper letters were written and some of my brother monks sent out to deliver them, most everyone gathered in the main hall for our evening meal. Only Dragonlord Chiron, his two bodyguards and Abbot Manu lingered in the courtyard, sitting by the well and discussing something that seemed very serious. I'd been scrubbing the floor as slowly and carefully as possible, wanting to hear as much as I could of their conversation. Even after the bell for services rang, I continued to work.

"Recluse?" Abbot Manu summoned me.

I put aside my scrub brush and stood. "Yes, Abbot Manu? Should I go now?"

"No. But come closer. I don't want to raise my voice." He replied.

I did as I was told and stared in confusion as Dragonlord Chiron's bodyguards brought forward a black lacquered chest, beautifully detailed in gold. Abbot Manu's mysterious gift. Of course! "That is very fine lacquer. A lovely gift for our noble Abbot." I said. I did not bother to explain that I was an authority on such things. It was obvious that Dragonlord Chiron already knew.

"Sit down." Dragonlord Chiron ordered. "The rumors are somewhat misleading, I fear. What I have brought here is no gift for Abbot Manu. It is a terrible treasure that I have unearthed and it is for your eyes only."

"You brought it here for me?" I blinked in surprised.

"Yes, monk Recluse. Or should I say... _Master __Ilumio_?" Dragonlord Chiron smiled slightly.

I said nothing in response. It was thoroughly inappropriate for anyone, even a Dragonlord, to ask a monk to reconsider the life that he had forsworn with his vows. The strange thing was, Abbot Manu did not seem displeased. If anything, the little spark in his eyes seemed to suggest that he was proud to show off the human curiosity he'd collected five years ago.

"I saw the wedding bands that you made for Sesus Nakira. I thought for certain that they were the work of a sorcerer. I didn't believe that mortal hands could possess such dexterity." Dragonlord Chiron admitted.

"Now you honor me too much, Dragonlord." I bowed when I spoke so that he would not see me smile. I remembered the rings that he'd spoken of very well. They'd taken me _months_ to complete.

"I am not a man who wastes time or money. I would not have brought this chest all the way here if I did not believe that there was some chance, however slim, that you could accomplish the task that I am about to lay before you." He paused. "Inside this chest is an ancient artifact. It has troubled me since I uncovered it near Lookshy during the war. I have never found anyone who can tell me what it is. But very recently, my friend wrote me a letter." He paused. "Mela had sent him a dream, and in his dream he saw me giving this chest to you. So now I am curious to learn what happens next."

"My lord, I know nothing at all about artifacts." I hesitated. "Surely, one of your Enlightened brethren..."

"Oh, there are many who would _kill _to get their hands upon this, that I know! But I want to see it repaired, you understand? I don't want to turn it over The Heptagram and never learn what it might have been!" He explained. "I also take my honored friend's suggestions _very_ seriously." He gestured to Abbot Manu. "I suppose I need not tell you that he has great faith in your skill."

The three of us all sat in silence for a moment.

"Might I see it?"I wondered, my fingertips trailing a few inches above the perfect lacquer.

"By all means!" He nodded.

Taking a deep breath and steeling myself for whatever jumbled, incomprehensible mess I might behold, I opened the chest. Wrapped in a crumbling piece of ancient white silk was a device unlike anything I'd ever imagined. I stared in awe. It took every ounce of resolve I possessed for me to close my mouth so that I did not look like a gasping fish. Words would not come to me. I picked up the first piece of the artifact, a flawless ivory mask, so heavy it might have been made of stone. Nevertheless, I lifted it from its resting place, held it an arm's length and studied it for a moment. I got the distinct impression that it was also studying me.

Abbot Manu seemed very surprised, perhaps because the prophetic dream Mela had sent him was actually playing out.

As far as I could tell, what lay inside the box was a raiment of some kind. The mask was clearly meant to attach to a small golden piece which looked like a soldier's gorget. That piece connected to the large chest plate, and the chest plate connected to the back plate, but there were infinitely more pieces! Ten five foot long "tendrils", each about an inch in diameter, made of articulated white jade and moonsilver lay coiled together in the bottom of the casket. Whatever fabric the thing had been wrapped in had long since disintegrated, revealing a spiderweb-like lattice of gossamer threads, even more gold and more silver! Whatever it was, it was a prince's ransom in rare metals!

Seeing that I was utterly speechless, Dragonlord Chiron laughed. "I imagine I must have looked just as shocked as you are now when I first laid eyes upon that thing." He admitted. "Take all the time you need, and tell me if you learn anything." He replied. "Also, this might help." He reached into the folds of his coat and offered me an egg-sized white hearthstone. It flickered faintly as I touched it.

I picked up the section of the device that was clearly meant to be the hearthstone setting, surprised at how heavy it felt. Small as it was, it had the weight of a brick, and when I bit the gold to test its quality, I nearly chipped my tooth.

It took me a moment to realize what I was actually looking at. There wasn't a stitch of ordinary metal anywhere on the device. It was crafted solely of magical materials! What I'd mistaken for _gold _at first was in fact, pure orichalcum! I'd never touched the legendary metal before and could not stop myself from reacting like a fool. "Do you realize what this is?" I demanded, forgetting my place once again.

"Can you fix it?" Dragonlord Chiron asked, completely ignoring my question.

"Fix it!" I blinked in shocked. "I haven't the foggiest idea what it's supposed to do!"

"I wish I knew myself. That's why I brought it here. Though I will admit, I have been sorely tempted to take apart for the jade and the gold." He paused. "Don't think of helping yourself to any of those broken pieces!" He added.

"I would _never_ steal... did you say _gold_?" I blinked at him in surprise. I'd thought when he'd dismissed me before that he actually had some idea of what the artifact really was. But if he didn't even recognize the material that made up its components..."Milord, surely you..." I decided to hold my tongue. Criticizing the Dragonlord's intelligence was probably not a very good idea.

"What? He raised an eyebrow in my direction.

"It's not gold, milord. It's _orichalcum_. It may look delicate, but it's twice as heavy as lead and harder than steel. I'm surprised you didn't guess that already, lugging this casket around." I explained. "Milord, _no __one _crafts orichalcum like this, not since the age of the Anathema." I explained, referring to the terrible golden demons that had ruled all of Creation more than 1,500 years ago.

"Anathema?" Abbot Manu murmured.

Though no one liked to admit it, since the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress forty years ago, there had been _many _more sightings of Anathema than ever before. Abbot Manu speculated that the Dragons were displeased with the backstabbing and character assassination currently taking place in the contest for the Scarlet throne. Heretics whispered that the Anathema were returning to reclaim the world which had been stolen from them.

I sighed heavily in defeat. "As much as I would love to fix this for you, I don't even know where to begin! And this is all magical material! It needs Essence to be worked!"

"So? You're Enlightened for a mortal, aren't you?" He pressed. "Use your own."

"It won't be enough." I told him truthfully, bowing my head.

"It will be enough to get you started." He replied.

I said nothing in response to that. Since I had come to the Abbey, I had trained and meditated diligently so that I might unlock whatever little Essence I possessed and learn to utilize it. I don't know what I'd imagined before I finally succeeded in tapping my own life force, but the results of my efforts were dismal and heartbreaking.

True, I had cleared a tremendous hurdle in touching my Essence at all... most mortals never did, but it still frustrated me that manipulating it was so murderously difficult. My Essence was clumsy and weak. Working with it was like working with cold hands.

Raised in a relatively liberal merchant household, I'd never gave much thought to the Perfected Hierarchy before I'd involuntarily entered the Immaculate Order. I'd scoffed at the idea that the Dragonblooded were my inherent superiors until I'd succeeded in unlocking my own feeble Essence. That was when I realized that the Immaculates were right and that I was wrong. Essence was the key to everything, the lifeblood of all Creation and it was only natural that whoever wielded it should be the masters and the rest of us their servants. Put simply, there was _nothing_ that enough of it could not do.

"As I've already explained, I have my reasons for bringing this device to you." Dragonlord Chiron replied. I was beginning to suspect that those reasons were less than honorable, and that perhaps the Dragonlord was not the fine, upstanding Dynast that he wanted everyone to believe that he was. "You should be grateful that _someone _still believes you have skills at all! Think of this as an opportunity to prove to me that you are indeed a great artist and not merely a _thief_. I am prepared to give a substantial donation to the temple for your pains." He casually remarked.

Abbot Manu heard those words, even if he had miraculously managed to ignore the rest of our conversation. "He will do it." He replied on my behalf.

"I'll try." I sighed in defeat. "But I am only human, milord."

"I understand that you have limitations." Dragonlord Chiron nodded. He motioned for his bodyguards to pick up the chest and turned to leave the room.

"As do you, Enlightened master." I smiled slightly despite myself.

"What was that?" Dragonlord Chiron frowned. For a moment I thought he'd actually heard me. My heart skipped a beat. Every so often, my reckless tongue still escaped me.

"Nothing, milord." I replied... and left myself.

The Dragonlord's two bodyguards who'd brought the lacquered chest into the Abbey followed me with it all the way up six flights of stairs to the tiny tower room that served as my workshop. The ceiling was barely tall enough for me to stand up straight and when the three of us together lifted the heavy device up onto my worktable, it made both the table and the floor groan. The bodyguards left without saying anything at all.

Immediately, I put on my glasses and went for my tools.

Technically, a monk is not supposed to keep the trappings of his previous life but the Abbot had given me sanctuary specifically for my unique skills and so had been obliged to let me keep a good set of tools uniquely suited to the practice of my trade. I chose my smallest pair of watch pliers and the finest screwdrivers I had, hoping they would be delicate enough for the exciting challenge of working on a magical artifact.

Once I was sure I had everything in order, I opened the casket and stared at the device.

It did not take me very long to discover why it was in pieces. It was definitely broken.

The part of the gorget which connected to the hearthstone socket was burned black and there was a long crack in the back plate that attached the spiderweb cloak. A nasty black tarnish had devoured most of the surface of the orichalcum. I removed it meticulously with polish and a small amount of Essence, smiling despite myself at the way the metal glowed golden in the sunlight.

Truly, it was as beautiful as the stories said.

In any case, a simple mortal monk did not refuse the orders of a Dynast. And despite my current position, I knew that I was still an unparalleled master of my trade. The consequences of making a mistake while working on a magical artifact were potentially devastating. It was better that I should undertake the task myself, and not leave it to some amateur who would surely blow himself to bits.

The damaged part of the device seemed like the easiest piece to remove, so that was where I began my work. Inside was a vision of glorious complexity that far exceeded the most brilliant watch I had ever disassembled. Simply exploring the heartstrings of such an artifact sent a thrill coursing through me. Working on watches had always been one of my favorite tasks. Sometimes I'd enjoyed it so much that I forgot to charge for my service. Really, there was nothing I loved more that the meticulous process of taking something apart and discovering how it worked. Not for the first time, I lamented my current position. Low-ranking monks such as myself were expected to spend most of their time gardening or cleaning. I hadn't done fine work in far too long, and I felt unforgivably clumsy. Nevertheless, I'd had more opportunity to ply my trade within the walls of the monastery than I would have had in prison with no hands.

"Well now, aren't you _beautiful_?" I whispered. The delicate gears fluttered under my breath like tiny butterflies. Though some might think it strange, I've always talked to my projects as I work on them. Although I know they can't hear me, I've never been able to shake the feeling that if they could, they might appreciate hearing a few comforting words as I subjected them to painful repairs.

Taking a sick thing like that, something almost complex enough to be alive.. and bringing it back from the verge of death reminded me a bit of my first childhood ambition, to study medicine. An apprenticeship to a family friend who was a jeweller was the best that my staunchly middle class parents could arrange, however. I never begrudged them that. The trade did suit me. And if I had become a surgeon, perhaps I never would have run afoul of House Mnemon and been sent to the Abbey where I had finally unlocked the secret of the very thing that separated mere mortals from the illustrious Dragonblooded.

_ Essence._ The project that lay before me would have been impossible without it! Every piece needed a gentle touch and a small amount of Essence before it would allow itself to be worked. Just taking the central section apart took me the entirety of my first working day.

And yet I plodded steadily forward, undeterred.

I lost track of the time as I worked and rudely dismissed the novice who called me for evening prayers, not wanting to break my rare and beautiful focus. I worked all night and into the morning, stopping only for the occasional drink of water, more paper to make notes, and sharpened pencils.

Dragonlord Chiron came to my door several times and peered inside but never spoke to me. It was clear that whatever I was working on was far more important than anyone could know. Confident after two days of ceaseless tinkering that I _could _unravel the device's secrets, I continued to work like a man possessed.

Inside of the chest plate, I'd discovered a mechanism clearly designed to handle different types of Essence. When I tested the device with a mote of my own, the needle had wobbled only slightly, and I recognized the ancient symbols for the five elemental Dragons not far from the bottom of the gauge.

The shocking thing was how many _higher _settings there were, nine of them in all! The device had obviously been made to handle unthinkably huge quantities of Essence, far more than even five or ten Dragonbloods could bring to bear! And if my assumptions were correct, then the radiant sun next to the number "9" near the top told me everything I needed to know.

Whatever it was, it had last been used by one of the Anathema.

Of course, all the while I worked I still felt that insistent nagging in the back of my mind that the scoundrel Himitsu was still at large. I still couldn't comprehend why he'd seen it fit to draw me into this mess with Dragonlord Chiron and whatever demon he'd disturbed. I didn't believe for a heartbeat that such a treasure would have been handed over willingly. They must have slain the Anathema, or found him dead already and robbed him. Either way, that meant trouble. I wouldn't deny that Anathema justly needed killing before they burned villages to the ground or ate babies or whatever other unthinkable things they usually did, but just thinking of what might happen to our quiet monastery if Dragonlord Chiron had _not_ thoroughly finished off the demon he'd robbed made me feel sick.

For lack of a better way to explain it, the device had a very personal feel to its construction. It was obviously a labor of love. It would _not _have been surrendered without a fight, and _never _abandoned. It was frightfully complex and I had precious little time to learn everything I could about it.

And so I kept working.

After three solid days with little more than a crust of bread to fill my stomach, I discovered a tiny filament of unidentifiable silvery metal, almost like spider's silk blocking one of the channels that the hearthstone was supposed to fuel. Everything else I'd examined seemed to be in working order, and so I decided that it was time to introduce some more power and see what happened next.

I took the hearthstone that Dragonlord Chiron had given me from my cache of parts and held it up to the light. It was exquisite. No mortal hands could have given it such a beautiful, precise cut.

I adjusted my lenses to their highest magnification and picked up my smallest, most precise pliers, connecting the nearly invisible slot in the back of the stone into the hearthstone socket. A smoky flicker of feeble white Essence coursed through the entire device. The energy I'd poured into it diligently over the last three days had been enough to cause it to accept the stone. Of course, I had nothing left myself, but I was confident that I had done the impossible!

I'd fixed a First Age artifact!

With my work complete I should have immediately called for Abbot Manu or Dragonlord Chiron, but I was struck by a sudden selfish desire. Perhaps I was already burning the very fringes of my soul, but I wondered recklessly if I dared use the last of my Essence to wake my long-suffering patient so that she could see who it was that had fixed her.

I put my fingertips on the draw points around the central hearthstone. At first I gave only a little Essence, but the device greedily drank it up and so I gave more, ignoring the lightheaded feeling that had come over me.

"I see you're not picky." I smiled slightly as I drew away. "Any Essence is good Essence, eh? No surprise there. You must be positively starving."

Of course, the device said nothing, though I swore I saw her nod slightly. Her tendrils made her look like a very large spider.

I've always rather liked spiders. I would save them from my mother's broom and put them in the garden when I was a child so that I could admire the webs they built.

"I'm very honored that you would choose to let me fix you. You've been most cooperative." I paused. "But I do dearly wish I had some idea of what you were meant for before I turn you over to... well, the person that owns you now."

The device slumped slightly, looked exhausted. The Essence I had fed her was faintly flickering and filmy white, reminding me of my weakness. I was toying with something built by monsters more powerful than the Gods and I wasn't even a Dragonblood! I was a fool!

But I _needed _to finish what I'd begun for reasons I couldn't explain. Dragonlord Chiron and Abbot Manu were the least of my worries. The device looked so utterly pathetic that I felt as though I'd killed her. It hurt to admit that I had failed. I'd never been so frustrated in my life! I was on the verge of throwing all of my tools out the window and cursing all the Dragons at the top of my lungs.

Then I saw what was wrong. My patient was faltering, not because I couldn't save her, but because I'd made a simple mistake! Just as the sun began to set outside my window, its fleeting rays caught the fine orichalcum needle of the device's internal gauge. For some reason it had turned itself completely to the left, back to the setting intended to handle the tremendously powerful Essence of one of the Anathema.

I took my smallest pliers and carefully brought it down to its lowest mark, for mortal Essence. Without hesitation, I poured everything I had left into the device, not caring that Abbot Manu would probably find me unconscious on the floor in the morning. My body began to feel clumsy and heavy. I cursed in Rivertongue under my breath, something I hadn't done in years. It was the native language of my parents, and though they always spoke High Realm in public to appear properly sophisticated, there were some words in Rivertongue which conveyed frustration and disappointment like no others. Life in the Scavenger Lands was harsh by any standards, and its people were always dreaming of greener pastures.

I was being impatient, but I knew that I didn't have the time to wait until my own inner Essence stores recovered. I paused for a moment to meditate and tried to quell the burning desire I felt to finish what I had started. My attempts to compose myself failed spectacularly. I was not willing to admit defeat! Not caring how dangerous my obsession had become, I put my hands back on the draw points and fed the device the very last dregs of my Essence. My vision went dark. I would have passed out and cracked the back of my head on the floor if my stool hadn't been set so close to where I stood that I stumbled into it and fell forward into my work table instead. Barely eating and not sleeping for days had taken too much out of me!

I thought for a moment that my heart was failing and I was about to die, but then I felt a sudden clearing in my mind. As when I'd first awakened my Essence, I touched upon a wellspring of power I'd never known before. The difference was, this power wasn't a faint spark barely bright enough to catch my inner eye. It was a source so vast and potent that I could not believe it was within me! I'd been looking for a cup of water and had nearly fallen into an ocean!

I had no choice. I had to seize onto what I had found and it draw it out. And so I reached further into the core of my being than I had ever reached before, to a place beyond any meditation. A thousand strange images poured through my head like a raging flood, leaving in their path not wreckage... but a new kind of clarity. I'd been expecting pain and hoping for a breakthrough, but nothing like what I was experiencing.

I'd been transfigured! I'd been broken all of my life and suddenly... I was _fixed_!

Or no... there'd never been anything _wrong _with me before! What I struggled against was nothing more than the typical, inefficient, superfluous junk that slowed down every mortal! I hadn't realized how worthless it all was, how cluttered my mind had been until it was suddenly wiped clean and sorted _so_ neatly! I wasn't just fixed! I was _perfect_! I was better than I'd ever been!

Has I gone completely mad?

Was madness supposed to be so profoundly _liberating_?

I stood up straight and put my hands firmly on the device, at once understanding it in all of its horrifying complexity and knowing instinctively what I needed to do. Like a lord issuing orders to a servant, I told the device to activate. Fiery golden light flowed through it like blood through veins, illuminating patterns and symbols that had been invisible to the naked eye. It burned like a falling star.

I did stagger into my stool then, staring up in awe at the device which had begun to rise up into the air under its own power, bleeding an aura of blue, crimson and gold. The empty eyes of the ivory mask were burning white and the expressionless face twitched in a surprisingly human manner. My patient evaluated me with obvious intelligence and I realized that I had severely underestimated her sophistication.

She was a construct! A _living_ artifact! I'd only heard legends about such things. No one credible had ever seen one! They'd all been destroyed with their demon masters in the ancient battles that had given birth to the Shogunate which had preceded the Realm.

I cursed again in Rivertongue. It was all I could do.

And then I saw my own hands. Flickers of the same gorgeous Essence that radiated from the device raced between my fingers. I could mold it effortlessly and I intuitively understood how it flowed as I never had before. I took a very deep breath and exhaled slowly. The aura of energy around me rippled and expanded, like the surface of a pond disturbed by a pebble. Even after so long without food or sleep, my mind was as sharp as a scalpel blade and my hands were steady.

Of course, that was when I turned in the direction of my door. My mother had willed me a good-sized mirror that I sometimes used to improve the light while I worked, and it was hidden near my closet to prevent the other monks from jabbering too much about my wealth of distracting worldly possessions.

I never paid much attention to it except when I needed light. I'd taken great pains with my appearance when I still worked in the capital where people cared about such things... but after I'd given up all of my fine clothes and shaved my head, I'd stopped caring how I looked. At that moment, however, I found myself utterly paralyzed by sight of my reflection.

I stared in horror at the brand between my eyes, a glowing half circle like the sun falling over the horizon. It was the same golden color as the tiny orichalcum gears that still laid scattered across the surface of my work table and the ambient ripple of oranges, reds and white-hot blues that flickered around my fingertips when I so much as _thought _of Essence made the horrible truth all the more obvious. I'd madly embraced some unimaginable power that had reached out to me in my desperation and never once considered what it might be. How could I have been so blind?

I'd become Anathema!

"Veritas! Open up immediately!" Abbot Manu ordered, pounding on my door. I could hear the sound of a dozen other monks and more than a few of Dragonlord Chiron's soldiers running up the stairs and I did not wait for them to break my door down. I grabbed my tools and seized the device, wrapping it around me like a cloak. The gorget automatically snapped around my neck and held fast. Heavy as it had been before, it weighed nothing then, and fit perfectly and comfortably over my shoulders. The sensation of the ivory mask falling over my face was shockingly familiar to me, but I had no time to think about such things.

Demon or not, I didn't want to die!

The last thing I saw as I jumped for my notes was the face of Dragonlord Chiron. Just as his daiklave brought my door crashing down, he caught sight of me and stared with his jaw dropped, not as if he'd seen a demon... but as if he'd seen a _ghost_.

My door was blocked. That meant there was only one way out. Not caring that I was more than five hundred feet from the ground, I leapt out my window, shattering all the glass. As I fell from the top story of the monastery towards the river in the valley far below, and insistent voice whispered in my ear what I needed to do.

I don't know how I understood the instructions I received because I'm certain they weren't in High Realm, Rivertongue, or any language that I thought I knew. Still clutching my precious tools and notes, the device's spider-like tendrils flailing all around me, I made a sign with my hands and spoke a single, earthshaking word. As I uttered it, the world exploded into light all around me. When I tried to understand what had become of my body, I saw only a flock of brilliantly colored little songbirds.

Not knowing what else to do, I flew in the direction of the setting sun.


	2. Chapter 2 - Godchaser

**Chapter 2 – Godchaser**

I don't consciously remember landing. When I awoke, I was lying on my back somewhere high in the mountains. I scrambled to my feet and immediately tripped over my toolbox. Composing myself, I considered my position. The last twenty-four hours were _not_ a nightmare. I'd fixed the device, jumped out a window, and flown away from the Abbey of Mela. As wretched as I felt, I also sensed that the new Essence in my body was already mending the injuries I'd sustained falling from the sky. Apparently, being possessed by a demon had some benefits.

Still, I did not know where I was. It was bitterly cold and I was hardly dressed for the weather, but my precious notes would serve me for tinder and I had a flint that I could use start a fire. Although most of my tools were not meant for heavy work, having something which could be used for cutting wood or skinning an animal greatly improved my chances of survival. For what it was worth, there was also the device that I'd fixed.

I walked for a few hours before I found a cave. A pair of fallen columns near its entrance suggested that it had been part of a building once. The walls inside were covered in Old Realm inscriptions. I recognized a few characters, but not enough to read much. If I hadn't been so cold, I might have spent more time studying the ruin, but as it was, I was rather fixated on obtaining as much dry tinder as possible.

I used some dry moss to catch the sparks from my flint. It smelled awful as it burned, but it helped the bigger logs to catch fire. As soon as I could feel my hands, I decided to take off the device that I was still wearing. At first, I couldn't figure out how to remove it from my neck, but then my fingertips brushed a familiar, elegantly concealed switch.

I held the device in front of me and examined it. It no longer appeared to be alive. If I'd thought it was a beautiful, alien object before... I knew it much more intimately then. I could picture what it had once looked like when its internal components were concealed beneath folds of fine white silk.

But what was it? A kind of armor, or s_omething __more?_

I set it down and it suddenly rose up into a sitting position. "_Translator __calibration __complete._" It quipped in Rivertongue, speaking with a young woman's voice.

"You can speak?" I stared in shock. I'd almost fallen flat on my back seeing it move under its own power.

"Maker?" The device wondered. Apparently she could also wrinkle her nose and raise her eyebrows at me.

"You were expecting someone else?" I laughed slightly. After the trouble I'd gone through, and all the trouble that was still to come for me... I'd repaired a machine capable of thanking me for my efforts and it had no idea who I was! For that matter, did I know myself?

It was a little difficult to ignore that my shelter was _very_ well-lit, and not by the fire that I'd started. In my efforts to scrounge for more tinder, I'd discovered that if I needed light, all I had to do was concentrate and the brand on my head would spark like a fresh struck match. The light it made was a soft, rosy golden color unlike any torch or candle.

"Maker!" The device exclaimed gleefully. "Oh, I _knew _you would find me! I should have expected that you would wear a different face by now."

"I know you?" I wondered uneasily, a little disturbed by how comfortable I felt having a conversation with something that looked like an enormous spider with a human face.

"Of course! You're my Maker!" She replied.

"But I didn't make you!" I argued. "I don't even know what you are!"

"I'm the 9HE2TD, third prototype!" The device informed me.

"And that means what, exactly?" I wondered.

"Ninefold Harmonic Essence Tracking Teleportation Device, of course! But you can call me "Godchaser"." She replied.

_ Godchaser._ I considered the nickname. When I'd first seen the device activate, I'd become convinced that it was a terrible weapon. But now that it was speaking to me, I was beginning to think that "toy" actually was a more apt description.

"What do you _do?_" I wondered.

"What would you like for me to do?" Godchaser replied innocently.

"You'll do whatever I tell you to?" I hesitated.

"You're my Maker."

"But I _didn't _make you! I'm sure I would remember constructing something that started _talking _to me! I'm sorry, but I'm not your Maker." I protested.

"No, you _are_! I've _never _worked for anyone else! You're the only one who can fix me!" Godchaser protested. Obviously there was no use in reasoning with her.

"Alright, so... _why_ did I make you? What's your _primary __function_?" I asked, not knowing what possessed me to string those two words together. It seemed like a very arrogant way of saying "What do you do?" but Godchaser had already misunderstood that question when I'd previously asked it.

"I... chase Gods. Well, I help _you _chase Gods. Not just Gods though. Fae. Demons. Anything with Essence. Particularly, you built me to..." Godchaser paused. "Uhoh. Some of my data has been corrupted." She hesitated for a moment. "Maker, I am afraid that I have not been keeping up with the maintenance you requested."

"Data?" I echoed. The word seemed both foreign and familiar. Apparently the device had some sort of library inside of it that allowed it to think and behave like a human being. More surprisingly still, it could also conduct some of its own repairs.

"The maintenance you requested." She repeated. " "I keep forgetting. There is something wrong with my data. Uhoh. Some of my data has been corrupted. I have not been keeping up with my maintenance you requested. Oh no, I can't find the file, I can't find it at all! Oh, this is terrible! Oh, I'm very sorry, Maker... but I can't answer your question!"

"That's all right. It wasn't important." I reassured her.

"You're not angry?" Godchaser seemed surprised. "I thought you'd be furious."

"Furious?" I laughed. "How could I be furious? You're brilliant!"

"Aww, don't make me blush!" Godchaser giggled. It was not the sound that one might expect from a machine. Whatever she was, Godchaser was most definitely alive.

"You're very dashing, you know." Godchaser informed me. "This new face you have. I like it. You'll look better when your hair grows back, of course."

As she flattered me, Godchaser's own face vanished. I stared at my own reflection in a haze of golden light. I didn't look much like a monk. My glasses were bent and I'd neglected to shave my head or my face for the past week as I worked on repairing Godchaser. I had a straight razor in my tools, but nothing to make a lather with, so I supposed I'd have to ignore it. Of course, the demon brand still flickering between my eyes was another matter entirely.

I very slowly reached out to touch Godchaser, noticing a black mark on her chest plate where a connection had come loose and burned. When my fingertips brushed it, I realized that I could heal the torn metal with my will.

"Hee!" Godchaser exclaimed. "That tickles!"

I stumbled away from her as I realized that I'd just instinctively worked a Charm like a Dragonblood would. Though using _Crack __Mending __Technique _was far less dramatic than what I'd done to escape the Abbey of Mela, it shocked me more than turning into a flock of birds had. The difference was, I hadn't known when I'd leapt out my window that I _would _fly to safety. But when I'd put my hands on Godchaser, I'd _known_ what I was doing. I'd _chosen _to do it, and that difference made everything suddenly real to me.

"Something wrong, Maker?" Godchaster wondered.

"Isn't it obvious?" I demanded, shaken. "I'm _Anathema_! I'm a gods-be-damned Unclean monster!" I buried my face in my hands. "I wonder... should I kill myself now, while I still have my wits about me?"

"No, Maker!" Godchaser was absolutely aghast. "Don't say that!"

"Well, it's the truth!" I replied. "I'm a demon now, and if I don't want to do something unspeakably horrible, I'll have to either kill myself or stay far, far away from civilization for the rest of my days! If I was braver, I would have let Dragonlord Chiron cut me down! What would you have me say?" I demanded.

"I would have you say that you are my Maker, who used to be called _Perfect __Mechanical __Soul _and is now called _Veritas __Ilumio_ - and that you are now as you have ever been, Chosen of the Unconquered Sun and Exalted of the Twilight Caste." I noticed that Godchaser had specifically used the word "_Exalted_". That was something I understood. The Dragonblooded were Chosen by the Immaculate Dragons, it was how they gained their powers over the five elements. I'd never imagined that someone could be Exalted by any of the other Gods, least of all the sun. It seemed outrageously far-fetched... and whether I wanted to admit it or not, rather spectacular.

"I heard those nosy Dragonbloods who were spying on you. That business about the Perfected Hierarchy and whatnot? Nonsense, that's what it is! All of those monks are broken and they are going to need lots of fixing!" She informed me. "Maker, you are _not_ a demon! You're one of the rightful Lords of Creation! You're _my __Solar_!"

Hearing _that _broke me, as it might have broken anyone. Becoming a demon was terrifying enough, but actually ruling Creation? Why had my heart jumped in my chest when Godchaser spoke those words? Why did I _believe _her? Clearly, I was losing my mind!

"I can't believe I'm listening to this! Oh, Mela, I am getting dragged into the pit of Malfeas! Stop, stop it you crazy machine!" I sputtered.

Godchaser was not amused. "How very callous of you, calling me a machine! You ought to know by now that I'm not an ordinary _machine_, any more than you, Maker... are an ordinary _man!_" She replied. "And if I am crazy, it's only because you made me that way!"

That ended our conversation for the night. I began to wonder if I'd stolen a great ancient weapon only to discover that it was actually a wife in disguise.

The next day I went out in search of foot, taking Godchaser with me. If anyone had seen me, they might have fled in terror, thinking I was being devoured by some Fae-tainted spider or something else too unspeakable to consider. I didn't know much about high mountain plants, but I picked some berries that the deer were eating and succeeded in scaring a mangy wolf off of a freshly killed snow hare. As it turned out, glowing like a demon with Godchaser around my neck and shouting obscenities in Rivertongue was far more effective than hunting with only a stick and a selection of pliers.

I prayed my meager meal wouldn't make me ill, but I doubted that Mela looked after Anathema and I'd never felt very strongly connected to any of the other Dragons, who were all more martial and ruthless. The whole time I ate, Godchaser said nothing. Because you see, while we had been out hunting for food... I'd lost my wits and told her to shut up or I'd dismantle her.

It took some hours to coax Godchaser out of her sulk and convince her to explain more of how she worked. A fair amount of snow was coming down and I didn't want to make an attempt down the mountain until I was certain that the storm had blown over. More importantly, I needed to know everything about my companion if I planned on surviving. As it turned out, she had no recollection of what I had done to escape the monastery either, though when I explained it carefully she realized that it matched descriptions of a spell of Emerald Circle Sorcery called "Flight of Separation".

"But I'm not a sorcerer!" I protested.

"Of _course_ you're a sorcerer!" Godchaser replied with her usual persistence. "A great old Devonian sorcerer of the Adamant Circle, no less! You should be _very _proud of that! Why aren't you?"

I said nothing but only pointed to my forehead. The mark on my brow made far better light for working than my silly mirror ever had, but just knowing that it was there where anyone in the world could have seen it made my skin crawl.

"Oh, I can see you don't want to talk about it." Godchaser replied. The way her tone changed when she was annoyed with me was one of the many things that made her seem very much like a person and not a machine at all.

As I'd foraged for food, I'd explained to her in meticulous detail just what kind of reception awaited me at home if anyone ever discovered what I'd become. She still twitched whenever I spoke the word _Anathema_, so we'd come to a compromise. Godchaser would stop spouting off soliloquies on glorious and wonderful I was... if I would stop saying the word "Anathema" and start using the plethora of Charms I'd spontaneously "remembered" to speed along the repairs she still needed.

"Well then, why don't you try to fix me again? Working cheers you up, doesn't it?" Godchaser pressed. I gave her a condescending look, embarrassed to admit that she knew me far too well.

"I'll starve to death if we don't leave this place soon." I grumbled.

"I'll be far more useful to you, Maker... if _you _would repair me!" Godchaser said.

"I'd work quicker if you'd shut up!" I retorted.

"You wanted me to talk to you before." She remarked, no longer deterred by my harsh words. She'd learned that I didn't really mean them. I did like hearing her voice. It reassured me that even if I had gone mad, at least I wasn't alone. "When you were working on me before, you must have said a dozen times how _beautiful_ I was!"

"That was before I knew what you were really like." I replied, smiling slightly at Godchaser's scowl. There was something familiar about how she watched over my shoulder as I worked on her internal components, curious, and never content to stay still. Of course, she couldn't do more than hover in one place, and she could only do that when she was completely filled with Essence. In a way, her inability to move under her own power was the only thing that made her controllable. I could only imagine how much trouble she might become if she had arms or legs of her own. She certainly had enough attitude to make up for the lack of them.

It did come as a bit of a shock to learn that I'd only just scratched the surface of her true complexity. In all the days that I'd spent trying to repair Godchaser, I'd only succeeded in solving the problem of her inability to hold Essence. Her ability to record and play back everything that she heard or saw seemed to be in working order, but Godchaser still could not access her "data" and her other "functions" which included "track Essence", "hover" and "teleport" were all completely useless. To be honest, I was completely overwhelmed by the prospect of being able to jump from one end of Creation to the other.

But what worried me more was how little I really knew about Dragonlord Chiron. Was it true that he didn't know what Godchaser could do? If any Dragonblood possessed enough Essence to keep her running and enough technical skill to dismantle her independent personality, she was essentially the ultimate Anathema-hunting machine.

"Ouch!" Godchaser complained as I accidentally touched two moonsilver connectors together. I found that I had much less trouble moving around the orichalcum pieces since I'd become Anathema, but some of the moonsilver parts were capricious to the point of insanity and now that they were alive again with Essence, they twitched enough to make a surgeon squirm.

"It's no use!" I sighed in defeat and put down my pliers. "I don't know what I'm doing!"

"I wish I could help you more, but I think your manse is failing." Godchaser sighed heavily. "Oh, if only I could teleport us home!"

I stared at her hearthstone. It flickered. She was right. It did look somewhat duller than before.

"Where is your manse?" I asked, before I realized I'd just made a tremendously silly slip.

"_My _manse!" Godchaser giggled. "As if _I _were an Exalt, and not just a silly little AI?"

"AI", I had learned, stood for "Artificial Intelligence" and was one of the odd terms that Godchaser sometimes used to refer to herself. She explained that the difference between what she was and a "construct" was that constructs were for fighting and doing physical work. They obeyed certain commands and behaved in predictable ways. Constructs were simple things that "even Dragonbloods" could build.

Godchaser was an AI... a machine actually capable of _thinking __independently __and __making __its __own __decisions_. More terrifyingly still, she displayed emotions and clearly possessed the capacity to learn. Nothing nearly as sophisticated as she was had existed anywhere in Creation in a _very _long time... and many people believed that such things were mythical, existing only in children's stories.

"All right, where is _my_ manse?" I sighed in defeat.

"Above your city, of course!" Godchaser replied.

"My _city_?" I demanded. "I don't have a city, Godchaser. Right now, I don't even have a tent! Could you be more specific than that? The city you're talking about might not even exist anymore."

"Oh, I'm certain it does! I heard the Sidereal who was following that Dragonblood mention it! Hm now, Nexus! Nexus, that's it!" Godchaser exclaimed. "I remembered!"

"Oh, wonderful. Of all the cities in the world, I get Nexus! The Harlot's Legs!" I groaned. "At least they speak Rivertongue!" I sighed heavily. At first I didn't even notice that Godchaser had said anything strange, but then one of the words she had spoken started twisting uncomfortably in the back of my mind, like something I should remember.

"Maker." Godchaser looked extremely disturbed. "I have just had the most uncomfortable thought. Some of my very important data is missing. Can you tell me... what is a Sidereal?"

"I don't know." I admitted. "You said there was one with Dragonlord Chiron?"

"Yes! He was disguised as a monk, but he used Essence outside your door and that's how I caught him. This is what he really looks like!" Her mask changed, revealing the unmistakable countenance of my old enemy. I decided that I would continue to call him "Himitsu" because that was the name of his that I'd heard first. I knew it meant "Secret" in an Eastern dialect of Low Realm and that seemed particularly appropriate.

"A Sidereal is _very __bad __news_." I replied.

I was more than a little disappointed to find that Godchaser knew nothing about Himitsu at all, except that she had encountered his Essence before. I asked her to tag him as "trouble" and alert me immediately if she sensed him nearby. Though I had never heard of a Sidereal Exalt before, if Himitsu did have Essence of his own, that certainly explained how he was able to so effortlessly thwart everyone who'd ever tried to get a straight answer out of him. He obviously did not want anyone to know what he was.

As much as I hated the man on principle, his desire to conceal his true nature from the world was one that I understood. I had no way to hide Godchaser but the thought of leaving her behind as I ventured into civilization for food and warm clothing made me very nervous. Though no one had discovered the cave where I had been hiding, some of Lady Tsubushima's men had skirted very near to it and I didn't want to risk them discovering Godchaser.

But counting the days that I had starved myself in my workshop, I'd been nearly a week without substantial food and the weather was steadily growing colder. I knew I'd certainly be recognized in any of the villages that were loyal to Lady Tsubushima so I decided to look for one not affiliated with the Snow Owl Clan.

Carrying Godchaser on my back, I crept within sight of a little town on the river and then buried her in the snow underneath an odd-looking tree. I had no money and nothing to trade, but I did have my tools and in places so far from civilization, the kind of skills I possessed were _always _worth something.

I'd made myself look as un-monklike as possible, making the most of my six days worth of beard and cutting my undershirt into a cap like the locals wore. I'd crushed some of the berries I'd been subsisting on and cooked my clothing inside of my toolbox until it became a shade of purple-brown. The lacquer I'd painstakingly applied so many years ago was ruined, of course, but that also helped me to look less conspicuous. Better that the locals should think I had angered my daimyo and been thrown out of my village... than for them to suspect that I was the Anathema currently on the run from Dragonlord Chiron and the entire Abbey of Mela.

The only thing I couldn't do anything about were my slippers. I hoped that people would ignore them... or maybe suspect that I had simply robbed a monk for his good shoes.

"Excuse me." I said in Low Realm to the first peasant I passed. "I desperately need food. I have no money, but I'm willing to work."

"Work for food?" He gave me a critical look. "Phew! You stink like deer berries!" He observed.

"I've been living on them." I admitted. "I was robbed on the road and this is the first village I've come to. The only thing I have is my tool chest. I guess it didn't look very valuable."

The excuse sounded pathetic when I heard it out loud, but bandits were common enough on the borders of Snow Owl lands, so the peasant seemed to believe my story.

"I can fix things." I added. That was such an understatement that it almost made me laugh. If I knew nothing at all about what I'd become, I distinctly remembered that the Unclean, despite being horrific monsters... were indisputably recognized as the greatest craftsmen that Creation had ever produced. If I could repair an intelligent construct, I could certainly sort out a broken door lock or a clogging-up water pump.

"What kind of things?" The peasant wondered.

"All kinds of things." I replied. "If you've got a watch or a... well, I suppose you wouldn't have anything like that. I could um..."

"I've got a watch." The peasant replied. "And if you can fix it, I'll give you as much food as you can carry."

"I could use a blanket too. Is there anyone around here who might be able to spare one?" I paused, thinking for a moment that I was asking too much.

"Might be. Let's see how you do with my watch." The peasant replied.

I followed him to his house, and his wife made a great show of gasping and sobbing over how blue my fingers were. She fed me a bowl of thick broth and a crust of black bread before she'd even allow her husband to go looking for the watch that I'd promised to fix. It took him more than two hours to unearth it, which was good because that was about the same time I needed to warm up before my hands felt steady enough to work.

The watch, when he placed it on the table in front of me, was clearly more than a hundred years old... a ship captain's watch probably from somewhere in the far West. The silver was frosted with salt and the glass that should have shown the device's face was impossible to see through.

"This watch belonged to my grandmother, Hawk. She was from Coral, the daughter of a Sealord." The peasant explained with a proud, innocent grin that left me convinced that his story was at least partially true. "She ran away from home and became a Tya. But then on one of the ships she raided, she met a poor prisoner who said he was the son of a daimyo. A prince, he told her. She fell in love with him and gave up being a Tya so that they could come here together. And then..."

"The sailor lied?" I guessed.

"No, my grandfather _was_ a prince! His name was Sun Yu, and he was the seventh son of the warlord Kamakura, the same daimyo who was overthrown by the Snow Owl Clan in the year of the great flood. My grandparents fought together at the gates of Kamakura's fortress until the warlord surrendered. They were heroes... but no one knows their names these days. I have been the headman of this little village since my father died many winters ago. It is not a very good position. My illustrious ancestors left me nothing at all except for this land which can only grow potatoes and ill-tempered sheep. And this watch, of course, which does not run, and the sword over the mantle that has not been drawn in forty years." He explained. "All worthless. It would be nice if... something I had was made good again."

I nodded, my attention somewhat divided between my hosts and the salt-encrusted watch in my hands.

"I'm named for my grandfather, Sun Yu. I am the third one to carry that name, and the only one that was never a warrior." He explained. "And this is my wife, everyone calls "Mother Hen". Because as you have seen, that's what she acts like. What's your name?"

"Recluse. Like the spider. Because I'm always hiding away somewhere, working on something." I replied before I could think better of myself. All things considered, it was very unlikely that the Snow Owls or the Smoke Clan would be asking for a "Recluse". They were probably riding as fast as they could, shouting "Anathema" when they thundered through a village, and expecting signs of horrible devastation.

Sun Yu didn't seem to think anything of my name. Truthfully, I suspect that I was more impressed by him than he was by me. Of all the places I might have found myself! Pirates and princes in a village that wasn't even marked on any maps? It was a bit like being a character in one of _T__he __Tales __of __the __Wandering __Monk_, the stories I had loved best as a child.

All of "The Wandering Monk" stories begin the same way. The wandering monk arrives in a village and helps someone seemingly insignificant. Over the course of the story he learns that the person he helped is secretly a princess or something similarly impossible. In the end, he saves the day in dramatic fashion and then walks off into the sunset, never to be seen again. There was a kind of magic to Sun Yu's tale, and I decided that it didn't matter if it was true or not. It made me feel good, and I genuinely wanted to help him. I opened my toolbox. The peasant and his wife both looked very surprised.

"Those are some very fine tools you have." Sun Yu observed.

"I used to be wealthy. I suppose I've been moving down in the world for some time." I admitted. "Bur I don't think that I could ever give these up." I admitted, holding my favorite pair of little pliers up to the light of the lamp that my hosts had sent in front of me. "Without them, I don't know what I would do."

"Oh, you poor dear!" Mother Hen clucked. "Things will look up soon! It can't rain every day!"

"Well, there is one nice thing about hitting the bottom of the heap." I admitted. "At least things can't get any worse."

"You could always be dead." Sun Yu informed me.

"Yu!" His wife gasped, hammering at him with her bunched-up fists. "What a terrible thing to say to our guest!"

"No, he's right." I sighed heavily. I should be thankful. I could be dead. I almost was."

Finding the right size of screwdriver, I carefully removed the back plate of the watch.

"When you were robbed, you mean?" Sun Yu pressed.

"Robbed? Oh, yes! Of course." I blinked in surprise, a little ashamed that I'd almost forgotten one of the most essential parts of my own fictional story.

As I had suspected, the watch did not come apart easily. I was forced to remove the face as well as the back and clean the salt out of both sides. When the gears still stubbornly refused to turn, I put on my glasses and took them out one by one, placing them carefully on a piece of paper – a page from my notes which I had carefully set face-down so that neither Yu nor his wife would have reason to ask about it.

As I believe I've already mentioned, I've never been a liar or a thief. So when a large diamond suddenly fell out of the watch and landed on my lap, I did not quickly cover it up and pray that neither Sun Yu nor his wife had noticed it. Instead, I held it up to the light and voiced my surprise almost loud enough to draw the neighbors.

"Merciful Dragons! Had you any idea this was in there?" I demanded, holding the diamond up for Sun Yu's examination.

"A _crystal_?" He wondered.

"A crystal? Sir, this is an uncut _diamond_! A diamond you could sell for the price of a fine horse! As it is now, it's worth at least a thousand gold pieces. And if you had it cut perfectly, losing as little of the weight as possible... it could be worth three times that."

"A diamond! Did you hear that? Yu, we're rich!" Mother Hen exclaimed.

"Could _you _cut it? Perfectly, like you said?" Yu wondered.

I didn't bother to conceal my grin. "_Absolutely!_" I replied.

It had been some time since I'd had cause to touch my precision tools and I'd always loved diamonds best of any stone. They were brutally hard to work, but they rewarded you like nothing else did, with such a lovely chromatic display of reds and blues and golds.

And that stone... it was a beauty!

When I had repaired the watch and almost finished polishing the diamond, Yu came to sit beside me. Mother Hen had long since retired for the evening, but my host watched my work, awed by everything that I did.

"Could you make a setting for that stone?" He wondered.

"I don't have any gold. And anything less would be shameful." I replied.

"What's this then?" Sun Yu wondered, producing a very thin piece of orichalcum from the bottom of my toolbox. I'd sheared it from Godchaser's hearthstone setting in an effort to help her retain Essence.

"Oh! A little bit of gold! How lucky!" Not wanting to show how terribly embarrassed I actually was, I took the metal and began to carefully work it into a shape that could cradle the diamond. Of course, orichalcum wasn't soft like gold was and certainly wouldn't melt in Sun Yu's little household forge, but I discreetly gave it some Essence. If it glittered more than it should have or felt unusually heavy, Sun Yu said nothing at all.

"Not bad." I said, trying to downplay what I was actually thinking.

It was some of the best work that I'd ever done. I was supposed to be Anathema... a damned monster! How was it that I found myself doing the exact same things I had always done, but more ease and grace than ever before?

Was my new found skill a side-effect of becoming one of the Unclean? I did not want to be a demon, of course... but I _was _a perfectionist, and I always wanted to be a better artist.

A mad thought occurred to me. What if no one _knew_ that I was Anathema? What if I never did anything so obvious as turning into a flock of birds... a thing that still sent my mind whirling, and instead used my new skill to do ordinary work? Could I embrace the sense of clarity I felt without exposing myself to the obvious danger, the bloodiness, or the horrible stigma of being one of the Unclean?

How would I feel about what had happened to me if my own perspective was not clouded by the perceptions of others? Would I be less afraid? Indifferent? Or worse still, would I be so morally weak as to rejoice in my own damnation? Only one thing was certain. I'd never been so uncomfortable inside of my own skin.

Smiling slightly, Sun Yu took the diamond I had set and strung it carefully on a piece of red ribbon. Inspecting it in the firelight, he smiled. "I wish I could give you something more." He admitted. "The kind of skill you have warrants something more than a blanket and some old potatoes."

"It's the least I can do. Without your help, I might have starved to death." I sighed.

"We'll sell it, of course." Sun Yu continued, his eyes still on his grandmother's secret treasure. "It'd be mad not to. But I think Mother Hen ought to have the opportunity to wear it first. A real jewel, for the princess she should have been!"

"Of course." I nodded.

"Well, my friend Recluse! You're well named, I think... skilled as a spider. And so now that the wife's in bed, let's see what's inside my grandfather's sword!" Yu suggested, cracking open a dusty bottle of plum wine. He poured me most of it and went to take the blade down from the mantle.

I left the next morning.

As it turned out, there was nothing at all inside of Sun Yu's sword, though I did check both the scabbard and the hilt meticulously. I put a fine edge on the blade and warned the old farmer to be _very_ careful with it. Sun Yu and Mother Hen were very sorry to see me go and promised that if I ever needed anything again, I could simply come and ask for it. Seeing my host listening to the merry ticking of his grandmother's watch and his wife wearing the diamond I had cut around her neck brought a smile to my face. The fact that I also had a pack full of food, a blanket, and a good winter cloak was a mercy almost too great to be dreamt of.

I found myself almost skipping down the road. Now that I wasn't in fear of starving or freezing to death, I was beginning to see a certain appeal to the profession of a traveling tinker. Maybe I couldn't risk staying in one place long enough to be detected, but that didn't mean I had to live like an animal!

Whatever it was that made Anathema act like rabid beasts... it obviously hadn't affected me. Perhaps it still would, but then again... I _had_ spent most of the night dwelling on my own unanswerable questions as well as everything Godchaser had said. The strength of her conviction left me wondering if I was the ignorant one, thinking that Dragonbloods were infallible simply because they usually got their way. Dragonlord Chiron himself had thought _orichalcum_ was _gold_!

"Oh Godchaser?" I called out as I returned to the place where I had hidden her. I couldn't wait to tell her how wonderfully my plan had worked. Finding a diamond inside of a pocketwatch! Really, it was a _perfect_ tale for The Wandering Monk! Truthfully, If I'd any talent for singing, I might have changed my profession to "bard" that very morning.

"Godchaser?" I repeated. There was no response, and as I saw that the snow had been disturbed, a sick feeling came over me. She was _gone._

I racked my brain. I'd no idea what to do first. Part of me screamed that I had to find her immediately before she fell into the wrong hands, and part of me even considered running back to Sun Yu and his wife and telling them that my friend was missing.

But I couldn't justify putting Sun Yu and Mother Hen in any kind of danger, not with the sort of people who were undoubtedly hunting me. And if I did ask for help rescuing a "friend" who turned out to be a completely self-aware First Age construct... that would be even more difficult to explain.

There were some tracks in the fresh snow, and though I knew less than nothing about navigating in the wilderness, I decided to stumble down them for as far as I could. It turned out to be far enough. In a small clearing near the edge of the river, six Snow Owl warriors stood. They obviously hadn't laid camp very long ago, maybe just the previous night and they were all gathered around their fire, shooting suspicious glances in the direction of Godchaser, who wisely chose to act like an inanimate object.

Of course, she _couldn't _move physically, but she might have been raising a verbal fit. While I did not doubt how smart she was, patience was not her greatest virtue, and she absolutely seethed when I said the word "Anathema" or any number of other words that she considered "horrible". I was glad to see that she was quiet... that would make it far easier to get her back. I'd given her enough Essence on the night that I'd awakened her that she had informed me that she would require no more to perform her "basic" functions. Part of the genius in her construction was her innate ability to reuse the Essence she already had, at least to a certain extent.

Although, once she could "teleport" again... Godchaser had coyly informed me that I would "_need __to __get __used __to __glowing_"... as if being publicly recognized as an Anathema was only a small emotional hang-up on my part, rather than a serious, life-threatening condition.

I didn't have time to make up a very good plan, because as I believe I've mentioned before... I am not particularly wilderness savvy. I probably made more noise trying to get a good look at Godchaser than all six of Snow Owl warriors made sneaking up behind me.

I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender and slowly turned around. As the Snow Owls seized my pack and roughly searched me for weapons, I realized I probably shouldn't have used the story of being robbed on Sun Yu and his wife. Karma was evidentially catching up with me quicker than I'd expected.

"He's not armed." One of the warriors announced, apparently satisfied by the search his clansmen had made.

"Not armed? What kind of idiot wanders around these mountains without a weapon?" Another demanded. He had the look of a leader... that is to say, considerably more scars and facial hair that his four companions, who were just boys. I doubted that any of them were more than eighteen years old. Of course, from the perspective of a monk, a walking stick was a better weapon than an axe or a sword, but I wasn't about to admit that.

"Looks like he's a tinker." The warrior who'd spoken first observed, opening my tool box the wrong way about and dumping all of its contents into the snow.

"A tinker? Didn't Lady Tsubushima say that the Anathema might be pretending to _fix_ things?" The one who'd spoken looked a bit a girl and was probably the youngest of the lot. But clearly, he was the smart one.

"Anathema?" I gasped. Hearing that word, I didn't have to feign shock and horror. I was definitely scared out of my wits. "No, I'm not a demon!" I protested. "I'm just a tinker!"

"Then why were you sneaking around our camp?" The leader demanded, poking me very hard in the chest.

"I was curious! I wanted to see what _that_ was!" I admitted, more or less truthfully, gesturing to Godchaser.

"It's demon armor." The leader snorted, tossing me aside. "Now take your junk, "tinker", and get lost!"

"You're just going to let him go?" The smart one protested.

"He's not the Anathema. He was pissing himself when Keto grabbed him." The leader scoffed.

I picked up my tools carefully and locked them back inside their box. Though it was more than a little reckless of me to attempt what I was consciously considering at that moment, I knew that if I didn't seize the opportunity to take Godchaser back, she'd be brought back to Lady Tsubushima's fortress and from there turned over to Dragonlord Chiron... which would make retrieving her virtually impossible.

Better still, the Snow Owls were off guard. There were six of them, but they only had swords that I could see, and I'd committed a good amount of time to studying Snake Style. I'd never tested my skills against armed opponents that might actually kill me before, but I didn't see how I had any choice. It was time to make my move.

I eased into Snake Form and expended just the tiniest amount of Essence, as Abbot Manu had explained to me was proper from the time I'd begun my training. But even that familiar stance felt very different. In light of everything that had happened to me, I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that the Enlightened martial art I had always struggled with was suddenly as easy as the Tai Chi I'd been practicing since childhood.

I swept the leader's feet out from beneath him with my stick, struck him in the throat and kept moving. Borrowing the momentum of the big man's fall, I slid myself under the awkward lunge of one of his companions and finished off another with a forceful palm strike. The one I'd dodged went for me again, foolishly... only to find himself on the receiving end of a crisp, swift hook kick. I saw the smart one sneaking up behind me. He was just slightly faster than I was and managed to seize a wooden shield reinforced with iron before I hit him. I did not react fast enough to pull my strike, but it didn't matter. The force that I brought down on the shield was enough to split it down the center, completely shatter my stick, and knock the boy unconscious. I was a little upset that I'd destroyed the walking stick I'd only had for a short time, but more shocked by how I'd done so. Just how strong was I?

That was when I heard the distinctive hiss of a sword shearing clear of its sheath. The last two remaining warriors drew their blades. I disarmed the first by dodging his attempt to pin me to a tree and then the second with a tiger's mouth and a swift knee to the chest. I looked down at the leader of the boys who blinked up at me dazedly, still stunned by the strength I had used to drop him.

"I'm taking my junk back." I informed him, walking over to pick up Godchaser. With her stowed safely under my new cloak, I put on my pack and picked up my toolbox.

Not one of the Snow Owls moved until I was almost out of earshot. Unlike the Realm's elites and members of the Immaculate Order, they did not consider themselves holy warriors on a mission to purge evil from the world. They were practical men. From their perspective, it made far more sense to lie down and accept defeat when the alternative seemed like suicide.

That attitude was part of the reason that the Realm generally left the mountain daimyos alone to do whatever they wanted. Most of them had been quiet for the better part of five-hundred years, but anyone who'd set foot in their territory knew that if the Realm ever pushed for higher taxes or greater concessions of land, they would find themselves in the middle of a guerrilla war that would never end. The Snow Owls in particular knew how to _pretend _to quit. But apparently my quick and dirty martial arts tricks had been more than sufficient to convince the boys that they really didn't want to fight with me.

"Hey!" The leader shouted. He'd obviously just regained his breath. "Hey, demon! What the hell was that thing you did to me?"

"Snake Style." I replied, ignoring the fact that he'd called me out. "Look into it."

I paused by the road, just on the edge of the trees. I couldn't see or hear the Snow Owls, and I was just out of sight of Sun Yu's village. When I felt for sure that no one was following me, I whispered tentatively to my silent companion.

"Godchaser? Are you with me?"

"Best. Rescue. Ever!" She giggled maniacally. It was strange to hear her cheerful voice just behind my ear, as accustomed as I'd become to sitting her directly in front of me and talking to her like a person.

"I didn't come to rescue you, you stupid machine!" I lied. "I came to retrieve my hearthstone."

"You horrible..." It took Godchaser a moment to sort out what I'd actually said. I couldn't see the expression on her face, particularly since I was currently looking through the eyes of the mask that she used to project her emotions on. It kept my face out of the wind, and I'd learned that if I was wearing it, Godchaser couldn't see me any better than I could see her. Which was good, because even though I was trying very hard to sound serious, I couldn't stop myself from smiling.

"_Your _hearthstone? Does this mean that we're going home?" Godchaser wondered.

"As soon as we reach civilization, I'm looking for a ship headed East." I replied.

"We're going home!" Godchaser exclaimed.

"What's this "we" business? I'm going to Nexus. I need my hearthstone, remember? I'm going to take you apart and sell you for passage!" I informed her.

"No, Maker!" Godchaser protested. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Whatever I did wrong, I'll never-never-ever do it again!"

"Calm down!" I sighed heavily. "You didn't do anything wrong! It scared me when you disappeared, that's all."

"Scared _you_?" Godchaser sounded absolutely incredulous. "I was defenseless! Just laying there like a..."

"Cloak?" I suggested. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but..."

"I'm not a cloak! I'm a very sophisticated AI, and personal teleportation device!" She reminded me.

"You're a teleportation device that doesn't teleport. Or even _hove_r! And you can't access most of your supposively _vast _data!" I retorted. "Face it, Godchaser. You're a cloak. A cloak filled with attitude!"

"Maybe you could design me _hands__?"_She suggested.

"I think that's a very bad idea." I admitted.

"But you're _thinking_ about it?" She pressed.

"I am thinking about it!" I laughed. "And I am thinking that it is a _very _bad idea!"


	3. Chapter 3 - Sam

**Chapter 3 – Sam**

I continued to travel southeast towards the coast. The weather got warmer as I reached the foothills of the mountains and only very rarely did I see anyone on the road. To help pass the time as I walked, Godchaser took it upon herself to start teaching me Old Realm. She'd been very shocked to discover that I didn't "remember" it, and I'd tried to explain to her that I did already speak four languages fluently, which was a great deal more than most people did. A handful of old monks and the Dragonblooded sorcerers who studied at the Heptagram were the only people who knew Old Realm. The language was functionally extinct.

That being said, I began picking it up very quickly. The challenge of learning something new also kept me from jumping in panic and trying to flee whenever someone glanced at me suspiciously. Even though I was technically on the run, I knew it was best not to draw attention to myself by seeming to be in a hurry. I stopped when I found the opportunity, once to help a farmer when his wagon got stuck in the mud and later to repair a precious bracelet that a young girl had broken by fiddling with it too much. Her mother tried to pay me with a small knife, but I declined the gift.

I'd never carried a blade intended to be used as a weapon before and I didn't feel that it would be right. If I meant to atone for whatever I'd done that had caused me to become Anathema, I needed to be as good as I knew how to be. At least that was how I explained it to Godchaser, who still didn't seem to understand why I felt that I should be doing penance. Though I felt no different with each passing day, I couldn't help worrying that the worst was still to come... that perhaps all Anathema started out as normal people who didn't understand what had happened to them and only became creatures of evil over time.

When I proposed that theory to Godchaser, she refused to speak to me.

Three days after my encounter with the Snow Owls, I began seeing more travelers. The mile markers on the road warned me that I was getting close to a town called Windfall. A merchant had informed me that it was five days walking from Windfall to the medium-sized trading city of Chio. From Chio it was only a short river voyage to the coast where I could barter my way onto a ship headed anywhere in Creation. I had my sights set on Nexus, the city of my birth. It was where Godchaser wanted us to go, and I was not opposed to the idea. I had not seen my home since I was four years old and remembered only that it was very busy, very dangerous, and very far away. All of those things sounded good to me, and having a destination made all of the tedious walking easier.

As fond as I was of hot meals and good beds, I loathed sleeping on the side of the road. The only thing that made my journey bearable at all was the food and cloak I'd gotten from Sun Yu and the incessant chattering of my companion. Though I had warned her about speaking when someone was liable to overhear her, Godchaser whispered her Old Realm lessons in my ear both morning and night. When a very fat merchant on a swaybacked pony trundled past us, she gave me a real gem of an insult that said all sorts of terrible things about the man and his mount, which she implied was his mother and possibly also his wife.

Occasionally my fellow travelers gave me strange looks, and I expected that had something to do with the fact that my "cloak" was snickering at them. As wicked as Godchaser could be, pretending to be a prince in disguise made it easier for me not to focus on the grim reality of my situation. I'd only been a demon for ten days and already I'd nearly starved to death and beaten six men senseless. If that experience was at all indicative of the future that awaited me, there was no guarantee that I'd make it to Chio at all, let alone to Nexus which was three months voyage by sea.

Still, the weather was very fine when I arrived in Windfall and that brightened my spirits. I saw a little inn called "The Crossroads" and decided to see if I could trade work for some food and a bed. It was a long walk from Windfall to Chio, and even further to take the south fork of the road to Uzun or the Imperial City. I went into the inn and set my tools on a table very close to the door with a sigh of relief. I didn't want to leave them where they might be stolen, but the box was heavy and I'd been carrying it for days.

As I'd warned her many times, Godchaser kept quiet when I took her off and draped her over a chair near my tools. What she looked like was a simple gray cloak - perhaps heavy enough to be reinforced with something like a buff jacket. I'd made a pocket inside of my hood so that I could rest her mask on the top of my head rather than wearing it over my face. Although Godchaser could hide her facial expressions, she often forgot to. While putting her mask inside of my hood and wearing it on my head like a hat made removing my cloak look a little awkward, it did keep me from looking like some sort of strange roadside phantom or fae creature.

The proprietor of the inn that I'd come to turned out to be a disorganized, nervous old man with a dozen half-finished projects lying about everywhere. I introduced myself as "Recluse" again without thinking and offered to fix his front door, which did not like to stay closed.

That much done, I did a bit of work on his windows, moved along to his cousin's boiler and then his neighbor's mantel clock. I earned myself a new shirt for resizing a rich woman's uncomfortably tight wedding ring and acquired some food from my host in addition to the room I'd been hoping for. I slept better than I had in weeks.

The morning I intended to leave Windfall I discovered that the inn was suddenly very crowded. I realized belatedly that I'd overslept and missed most of breakfast. Trying not to seem overtly paranoid by the surprising number of travelers scattered throughout the room, I took the only empty seat. It was next to a nondescript young man dressed in simple leather armor and a blue cloak. His army-issue sword was under his bench and a leather satchel that evidentially carried all of his important correspondence was carefully set on the table where he could keep his eyes on it continuously.

I recognized the lightning-bolt insignia on the back of his cloak. He was a member of a fairly well-known Imperial Legion, the Ravenous Winds. While the Winds did not enjoy the pristine reputation of Dragonlord Chiron's Scarlets, they were widely regarded as the most efficient Wyld Hunt ever to scour the face of Creation. A Wyld Hunt, of course, is a military detachment with a small contingent of Immaculate monks which dedicates itself to task of hunting down Anathema, a very dangerous profession.

In other words, I was sitting right next to someone liable to kill me.

The owner of the inn brought me breakfast and refused to take any payment for the meal. Some of his gathered patrons whispered to one another and pointed in my direction.

"You must be the famous tinker." The messenger next to me observed. "Gordon won't stop going on about how you've fixed every damned thing that's ever been broken in this place... all for a bed and two square meals."

"It wasn't much." I replied.

"Are you kidding? _The __Crossroads _has always been a dump! If it wasn't the only inn for miles it'd have no business at all! Broken windows that let all the cold in, crooked tables that make your dice roll badly, beds full of lice and lumps..." He rolled his eyes. "I was raised here in Windfall, so I ought to know! People have been kicking the bottom of that front door to make it open for more years than I've been alive!" He rolled his eyes. "Name's Sam, by the way." I'm a messenger in the Ravenous Winds."

"Isn't Mnemon Rai usually out in the Scavenger Lands?" I asked, not giving my own name in return.

"You know Old Thunderstormer?" Sam brightened.

"Well, I know _of __him_." I replied, cursing my own silly mistake.

Truth be told, I _did _know Mnemon Rai Jin, and fairly well too. I'd met him several times when he came to visit his eccentric sister who'd been one of my most devoted patrons when I still worked as Master Ilumio. While I liked the Winglord's liberal stance on giving mortals opportunities to serve as officers in his Legion, I was sure that if we were ever reunited, our reunion would not be a pleasant one. Among other things, "Old Thunderstormer" had singlehandedly killed more Anathema than any other Dragonblood in Creation.

"He's a good commander. Well, he's fair anyway. About the only thing he doesn't tolerate is folks who don't pull their own weight and that's fine by me, because I've always worked like a dog. I've been visiting my family since the end of Ascending Water and it was nice at first, but now I'm going crazy! That and... well, the news!" Sam explained, patting his bag softly.

"What news?" I wondered... hoping that it wasn't about me.

"Well, Talonlord Calil has gotten himself into trouble and Old Thunderstormer is holed up near Nexus. 'The Boss' is gathering up every Wind on the Blessed Isle. He wants to bring a whole new Talon to Mnemon Rai Jin." Sam continued. "You'd think it would be impossible to call up five-hundred men on such short notice, but if anyone can make an army out of nothing, Cathak Loren can."

"Should I know that name?" I wondered, certain that I'd never heard it before.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Loren is the one who really runs the Winds. "Old Thunderstormer" is a great war hero and all, but he's practically retired. Cathak Loren may be a mere mortal just like the two of us, but there's not a Dragonblood in the Winds who hasn't been whupped by him at least once. Also, I hear that Old Thunderstormer might make him Talonlord soon." Sam explained, wolfing down what was left of his breakfast.

A mortal, given the rank of _Talonlord_? That _was_ news!

"It's about time, too. It's really not fair how 'The Boss' never gets credit for everything he does. He should have been Exalted... he'd have made it into the Scarlets for sure. Dunno how the Dragons missed him." Sam continued.

"That's not a very wise thing to say. The Dragons don't make mistakes!" I scolded him, forgetting for a moment that I was no longer an Immaculate monk.

"If you say so." Sam shrugged, undeterred. "Say, tinker... what's your name, anyway?"

"It's Recluse. Like the spider." I replied without thinking.

Though I'd intended to adopt another alias, I'd once again given my nickname just as I'd given it to Sun Yu and Gordon, the innkeeper. I'd have to move fast when I made it to Chio... before word arrived that the great and terrible Anathema was calling himself "Recluse".

Sam was not impressed. "Brown Recluse?"

I nodded.

"Doesn't suit you at all." Sam eyed my very short hair which was coming in far redder than it had ever before. "You look more like a "Copper Spider" to me."

Godchaser giggled.

"What was that sound?" Sam blinked in surprise.

"I didn't hear anything." I lied.

"Hunh. Could have sworn I heard some girl laughing right behind us." Sam paused for a moment and then downed the rest of his coffee. I suspected it had gotten cold long ago with how much he seemed to enjoy talking.

"Well, its been very nice meeting you, but it's time for me to go." I announced, picking up my things. Without waiting for Sam's response, I went out the front door and dunked into the stables behind the inn. When I was certain that no one was close enough to hear me, I scolded Godchaser for her recklessness.

"I can't believe you!" I groaned. "That soldier heard you! Godchaser, we talked about this! If anybody sees or hears you... it'll be bad for both of us!"

"Awww... I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it! Maker, didn't you hear what he called you?" Godchaser asked.

"What do you mean?" I wondered.

"In the old days there were lots of fancy names for Solars." Godchaser explained. "Your Caste were called Copper Spiders. It's a very cute alias, don't you think?" She giggled.

I didn't think it was as funny as she did. "Look, I need you to be quiet if Sam catches up to us. Not even a giggle if he calls me that again!" I warned.

"Oh, but I do hope he does! I think it's a wonderful sobriquet and I haven't heard it in ever-so-long!" She informed me. "It makes me think of Autochthon The Great Maker and well, you're my Maker and who wouldn't want to be compared to..."

Godchaser fell silent as Sam stepped out of the tavern, clearly looking for me. He said a few words to a farmer near the roadside and then went to fetch a rangy gray horse with a massive square head. He kicked the beast a little harder than I thought fair and came trotting up to me. I tried very hard not to appear distracted.

Though I didn't like to hear her singing my praises, when Godchaser had spoken the name Autochthon I'd felt a surge of familiarity. I wanted to know whatever it was that she had been about to say, and I was certain that she wouldn't remember she'd been rambling about by the time that night fell. While not stupid by any means, I'd discovered that Godchaser's short-term memory, like her "data" was all but worthless... which did explain why she sometimes seemed to have the attention span of a mayfly.

"Hey, Recluse! I just talked to a friend of mine, and he's headed to the mill. That's on the way to Chio. You want to ride in a hay wagon for awhile?" Sam asked. "Those tools of yours look like they weigh a lot."

"I'm used to carrying them." I replied stiffly. "And I don't want to impose."

"It's not an imposition, and it'll save your feet for a few hours. Besides, it's a long way to Chio!" Sam warned. "Five days journey if you walk it all. Four if you ride today."

When he put it that way, I found that I didn't have the strength to refuse.

As it turned out, we both rode in the hay wagon. Sam ponied his horse behind and did most of the talking. The farmer that was ferrying us took his exuberance with a smile, and I didn't mind his incessant chattering. As long as Sam was talking, no one was looking at what I was working on. Walking for days on end had given me no opportunity to tinker, and there was enough scrap in the bottom of my tool box for me to make a few little fancy baubles that I could sell when I made it to Chio. Of course, since I didn't have a heat source to properly coax magical metal into the shapes that I wanted... I was secretly using just the tiniest bit of Essence to accomplish the same task.

When the hay wagon reached its destination, I continued on foot and Sam accompanied me, dragging his obstinate horse. It was obviously not a well-bred animal, though he argued that it had tough hooves, which was an important asset from the perspective of a messenger. Although Sam could have made much better time riding, he preferred having my company. I enjoyed the experience of traveling with another person myself. It made me feel almost normal again.

_Almost._

Sam and I stopped long before dark that first evening, camping with a small troupe of actors that Sam had spied with his telescope. Though I would have preferred to cover more distance in a day, Sam was clearly in no hurry to get anywhere... which seemed very strange for someone who was supposed to be a messenger. He joked and trotted his ugly horse in tiny circles until the actors invited us to eat with them and then he revealed that he'd been carrying a decent bottle of wine. That bottle earned us not only the appreciation of our hosts but also some musical entertainment with our evening meal.

There was an old whore who had some skill on the shamisen, a pair of entertaining, bumbling drummers, a huge, hairy man billed as "The Beastman", a Djala acrobat and a brother-and-sister fencing act from the far West. Their speech was incomprehensible, but their choreographed swordplay was very impressive. Last but by no means least was a beautiful young woman who could have passed for an Air-Aspect Dragonblood. As it turned out, she was _not _an Exalt, barely an actress and even worse as a singer, practically tone deaf and prone to wheezing at the most inopportune moments. Not that it mattered. In most popular plays, the role of "leading lady" required very little talent beyond shedding tears on cue and fainting convincingly.

It was still not full dark when Sam and I had finished eating.

Not liking how I sat apart from the actors and fiddled with my tools, Sam drug me over to a fallen tree on the edge of a nearby rice paddy. Then he sat down and seized the piece of bent wire that I'd been toying with since I'd been pulled away from my work.

"You need to stop tinkering, Recluse!" He informed me. "You really are one seriously antisocial spider, aren't you?"

"What do you want me to do?" I demanded.

"Just sit here and watch the sunset. You're on a trip, aren't you? Why don't you enjoy your journey?" He demanded.

"You'd live on the road if you could." I informed him.

"Of course!" Sam replied. "New places, new faces, every day an adventure? You know, you are _really _quiet. Here I am taking your ears off again and I still don't know anything about you! Where are you from? Where are you going? You obviously don't travel just for the fun of it, like some of us do." He bowed dramatically, gesturing to himself.

"I'm just looking for work. Beyond that, there's nothing to know. I'm not interesting." I replied.

"I sincerely doubt that." Sam retorted. "And if you were really just looking for work, you would have stayed in Windfall. That inn might actually pass itself off as reputable now, and I'm sure lots of folks would hire the man who turned it around."

"All I did was fix a few things. Anyone could have done it. Why do you care?" I demanded.

"Who says I care? Travelling is just more fun with a few stories, that's all! It's okay if you don't want to talk, I understand that. But please, stop fiddling! Just sit for a minute, look out there and tell me what you see!" He held out his hands as if he were an actor himself, delivering a great soliloquy on stage.

"The sun." I replied flatly.

"That's all?'" Sam frowned.

"What else is there? Rice?" I suggested.

"You're telling me that you can seriously look out at _that _sunset... and all you think is 'Oh, it's the sun?'" He pressed.

"I suppose it does make me think of diamonds." I admitted.

"Diamonds?" Sam seemed to be genuinely intrigued. I sighed in defeat and decided that I'd try to explain.

"Well, I was a jeweler, many years ago. And each time I finished cutting a diamond, I'd take it outside, hold it up to the sun, and decide where it could be improved. The cut of a diamond needs to be very precise. but a dedicated craftsman can transform a good stone into an extraordinary one." I explained.

"A jeweler, eh? If you were trained in a lucrative profession like that, why are you homeless?" Sam wondered.

"I made some bad decisions. I'm trying to get back on my feet but it may some time. Until then I'll repair whatever needs fixing. It's all the same to me." I shrugged.

"Oh." Sam paused. I suspected that he knew I was lying. Truthfully, I did enjoy doing what I could to help people, but there was no challenge for me in sorting out a stubborn doorknob.

"Really, I can't believe I'm telling you all this!" I sighed. "It's just worthless drivel!"

I turned to Sam. There was something about him that was simply so genuine and likable that I found that I couldn't resist continuing the speech I'd begun. In the half-light, his eyes looked even more yellow than they usually did, almost catlike with strange, very dark pupils that sparkled like the night sky. I'd seen eyes like his before, though I couldn't remember exactly where. What was it about Sam that made my remarkably clear head feel so muddled?

"So how do you cut a diamond?" Sam pressed.

"Very carefully. With another diamond." I smiled slightly. "A diamond which hasn't been worked isn't really very impressive, usually white and chalky looking. It takes a certain kind of skill to see the potential in a stone." I gestured to the sun, which had begun to sink below the horizon. The sky was unusually brilliant in shades of orange and scarlet. "We see the sun all day and we never think about light having color, not like this. But once it has that perfect cut... well then, it's impossible to ignore."

Godchaser heaved an enormous, melodramatic sigh. I glanced quickly at Sam, who didn't react at all, and then turned my attention back to the sunset, pretending I'd heard nothing myself.

I didn't have the heart to scold Godchaser. She had a habit of sighing like a pining lover every time I said something that she liked. And while she enjoyed hearing that she was beautiful and brilliant, what she loved above all else was when I rambled like a madman about the ideas that I had. If I went on for hours discussing the pros and cons of different alloys, or postulating wildly on the possibility of artificial flight Godchaser hung on my every word. But I questioned my own existence, she only cursed me for being "horrible" and began to sulk.

I'd gotten used to Godchaser coming up with ideas, laughing, voicing her opinions, teasing me, getting angry and of course, sulking when I upset her. I'd become fully convinced that she was as much of a person as any human being I'd ever met. While I certainly didn't think of her as a mere "machine"... I still couldn't decide how I ought to feel about the fact that she was obviously in love with me.

I was also beginning to suspect that my new friend Sam was a Sidereal.

Godchaser was unusually quiet for most of the following day. Traveling with Sam, I thought it best to avoid talking to her, but she didn't even snicker when he referred to me twice as "Copper Spider". While Sam was occupied with a rock that was causing his horse to limp, I took the opportunity to discreetly whisper to my _other_ traveling companion.

"Godchaser?"

"Maker?" Her voice sounded strange, almost groggy.

"You've been very quiet." I said.

"Have I?" She murmured. "Didn't you want me to be quiet?"

"I did, but now I'm worried about you. How do you feel?" I asked.

"Tired." She replied. "I need more Essence."

"I suppose I could give you some right now." I admitted, making sure that I was not being watched. I hoped that Sam wouldn't sense what I was doing and then scoffed at myself for being so paranoid. Really, I'd no proof that he was any kind of Exalt at all. No Dragonblood would have lowered himself to dealing with mere mortals as Sam did. I was beginning to doubt that I knew anything at all about Anathema, but I felt confident that no one carrying the same curse I did would purposefully associate with a demon hunter like Mnemon Rai Jin.

Perhaps he was a Godblood? Still, I found myself wanting to call him a "Sidereal" even though I still didn't have the foggiest idea what that meant. The idea of Sidereals secretly manipulating the world remained firmly fixed in my mind and after everything that had happened to me, I had to believe that they were watching me. Since Windfall, I'd felt as though I were being stalked, particularly at night. I thought of Himitsu incessantly, and by Godchaser's own admission she had been designed to hunt Sidereals... among other things. Obviously whatever they were, Sidereals couldn't be trusted.

But since Godchaser couldn't explain _how_ she detected them, all I could do was suspect everyone who seemed unusually interested in me. "I've meant to ask you about Sam. Do you think he is a Sidereal? He says the damnedest things, but I haven't seen him do anything out of the ordinary." I whispered

"He hasn't seen you do anything "out of the ordinary" either." Godchaser reminded me.

"I see your point." I glanced over my shoulder. Sam was still cursing at his horse.

"Well, he hasn't used any Essence around us, and I can only identify Essence that's actively being used." Godchaser informed me. "And speaking of Essence, I need more."

"I've given you as much as I can." I replied, brushing aside the fabric of my cloak to have a look at the imprints around her hearthstone. Sure enough, the little gauge that measured how much power she was holding was situated only four tally marks above empty. Her hearthstone flickered and then went dark for a moment.

"I still need more." She complained, her voice wavering again. "I told you, there's something wrong with your manse!"

"Yes, I'm getting that impression. Without your hearthstone, how long can you operate?" I asked.

"Without your _heart_, how long can you operate?" Godchaser retorted. She was obviously crabby, but given her condition I decided not to start an argument.

"Is there anything you can do to conserve Essence?" I pressed.

"I can sleep. But..." She hesitated.

"But what?" I wondered.

"There's something else wrong with me. You're going to need to fix it. Right now if I sleep, I might not wake up again." She explained.

"That's no good." I paused. "I'll have to take a look then. Tonight, after Sam goes to bed. You'll need to hold on until then."

"Okay." Godchaser agreed. For someone who usually had such unshakable faith in me, she did not sound very enthusiastic. Whatever was wrong with her hearthstone and by extension the manse that she wanted to guide me to was obviously very serious indeed. Nexus, unfortunately, was still several months travel away. I only hoped I could sustain her long enough with my clumsy fumblings to make it there. As much as she annoyed me, I couldn't deny that she was also the only thing keeping me sane.

If I was still sane at all.

I was beginning to wonder about that.

Sam and I made camp just after sunset when the sky was still slightly purple. He fell asleep almost immediately after lying down. I pretended to be sleeping myself until just after full dark, at which point I took my tools and Godchaser all the way down to the river some five-hundred yards away. It was a very overcast night, and neither the moon nor most of the stars were visible.

Very carefully, I set Godchaser on a large rock and stripped away the fabric of my cloak, hoping that the problem would be something as simple and mundane as the piece of jade that had originally prevented her hearthstone from resting comfortably in its socket. When I removed her outer carapace, a horrible burning smell assaulted my nostrils.

A black, rust-like substance had begun creeping through the orichalcum. I didn't know what it was, but there was clearly something in the metal that needed a constant supply of Essence. Corrosion had obviously been very slow as Godchaser slept for centuries, but apparently her recent activity made the deterioration faster. With her hearthstone failing, I had no choice but to keep her filled with Essence until I could figure out how to stop whatever was killing her. That would not be an easy task.

Dark as it was, the night of a new moon and an overcast sky... I hadn't even considered lighting a lamp. I'd picked up one in Windfall but hadn't bothered to purchase any kerosene. It was almost as if I'd known that I wouldn't really be using it.

"See how this does." I told Godchaser, making a few little adjustments. As I had earlier, I gave her as much Essence as I dared. She glowed brilliantly as she had when I'd first resurrected her. The Essence made her look much more impressive than she usually did, which was something of a feat... and it obviously improved her mood.

"Oh!" She exclaimed. "Oh, much better! Thank you, Maker!"

"Good. I'm glad you're feeling better. Because now I'm exhausted." I informed her, smiling slightly despite myself. I walked down to the water and splashed a little in my face, wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

I stared for a moment at my own reflection. It was difficult to believe that I'd been away from the Abbey of Mela for less than two weeks. I scarcely recognized myself. My hair was growing back very fast and my beard was a mess, coming in outrageously uneven. With my glasses on, I looked nothing at all like an Immaculate monk. If anything, I was starting to look like one of the mountain barbarians, albeit with very red hair. I'd have to clean myself up before I started hunting for passage to Nexus. While sailors weren't known for being well-kept, a ship's carpenter was sometimes an officer and expected to adhere to a somewhat higher standard of behavior.

I knew nothing at all about sailing and wondered if someone might call my bluff before giving me a berth. Then I scoffed at myself. The brand between my eyes was impossible to ignore. Considering the magnitude of what I was really hiding, why should I be worried that someone might not believe that I was a sailor? I immediately tried to extinguish the mark on my brow. It flickered for a moment in defiance of my efforts and then went out. Strangely enough, suppressing it didn't actually make me feel better. If anything, being out in the pure dark made me wish I'd bought oil for my stupid lamp.

I felt once again as if I were being watched, and I'd no idea where my pursuers might be hiding. My gut instinct, mad as it seemed... was to burn even _more _Essence and make some light.

"It's dark." Godchaser observed. I could see her still glowing even if I couldn't see anything else, and so I gingerly made my way back in the direction of the rock where I'd left her sitting, trying to find all of my tools without actually being able to see them. I didn't dare use any more Essence. With as much as I'd surrendered to Godchaser, I was already on the verge of glowing involuntarily. I'd learned very quickly how it felt to reach my new limit and did not make the mistake of trying to surpass it. As soon as I couldn't conceal the mark on my brow, I refused to push myself any further. I knew beyond any doubt that I'd barely exhausted even _half_of my new Essence... but whatever I might accomplish was not worth the danger of being _obvious_.

"Ow!" I winced as I accidentally kicked my tool box. "Damnit!"

"Be careful!" Godchaser quipped.

"I am being careful, I just can't see!" I cursed.

"You'd be able to see just fine if you'd use your Caste Mark!" She retorted, very loudly.

"Godchaser! Not so loud!" I hissed.

She ignored me. "I don't know why I have to keep telling you these simple things, Maker!" Godchaser sighed. "Honestly, why are you stumbling around in the dark like a dummy? Are you still ashamed to be Exalted?" She demanded.

"Hello? Someone down there?" Sam wondered, at that moment clearing the top of the hill. His jaw dropped as he saw me.

I wasn't still glowing, thankfully. But Godchaser was.

"What the hell is that?" He whispered in awe.

"Nothing." I replied.

"Nothing? You're unbelievable! It's obviously an artifact. What's making it glow like that?" He wondered.

"I don't know." I said.

"You don't know?" He snorted, noticing my tools still scattered all over the ground where I'd kicked them. "You've been carrying it all this time, haven't you? And there's something wrong with it, so you're trying to fix it in secret where no one can see what you're up to. Because if anybody lays eyes on this thing, they're going to lose it."

"Would you believe me if I said that this is not what it looks like at all?" I asked.

"You're a lousy liar, Copper Spider. I knew there was something weird about you already. This is not exactly what I was expecting, but..." He gestured to Godchaser. "Where did you get it?" He demanded.

"You won't believe me if I tell you." I replied.

"I'd believe you if you told me that _thing _crashed down from Heaven inside of a giant peach!" He vowed. For the second time he emphasized the word "thing" as he pointed at Godchaser and her non-existent patience shattered.

"How very rude! I'm not a "thing"!" Godchaser protested.

"It's alive!" Sam gasped, slipping on the wet grass and falling flat on his back.

Godchaser giggled.

"Stop it, Godchaser! I swear I'll dismantle you!" I threatened.

Godchaser fell silent.

"_Godchaser_?" Sam echoed incredulously. In fairness, her name did beg repeating.

He stared in silence for a long time.

I sighed. "Just he fact that you've seen her might get you in trouble. She's the reason I didn't want you to travel with me, Sam. P_lease_ don't tell anyone! I didn't steal her and she's not a weapon. I've never killed anyone and I don't intend to... but I am in a lot of trouble right now and without Godchaser I'll probably end up dead. With her it's maybe even more likely... but in any case, I can't just leave her somewhere!"

"Why not?" Sam wondered. "That's what I'd do if somebody gave me something like that!"

"You only say that because you don't know her." I didn't say more, but the expression on my face must have made what I was thinking obvious.

"_That _cannot be your friend! It's not even _human_!" Sam protested.

I didn't respond. He hadn't meant anything, saying that last word as he had, but it did remind me of my own position. Perhaps a construct was the only friend an Anathema could have. Maybe that was why I'd built her in the first place.

It took me a moment to sort out the thought that had just occurred to me. I'd _built _Godchaser?

Of course, she'd called me "Maker" from the very beginning, but I'd never been sure of her claims. I couldn't remember any sort of past life, let alone one in which I was an Anathema, the ruler of a city... and apparently also a woman. But when Sam had started shouting at me, he'd sparked something in my mind, a fragment of a memory.

_ I __was __putting __on __a __pair __of __very __unusual __gloves.__There __was __a __smell __in __the __air __that __was __distinctly __familiar __to __me. __The __room __I __was __in __was __maddeningly hot, __and __in __front __of __me __loomed __an __enormous __furnace __that __glowed __like __a __meteor. __With __my __hands __I __reached __into __the __furnace, __taking __out __a __mold __filled __with __liquid __orichalcum._

_Very __carefully, __I __reached __for __a __chain __I __wore __around __my __neck. __Attached __to __it __was __a __small __vial __of __something __iridescent__. __I __opened __it __and __held __my __breath __as __I __poured __its __contents __into __the __cooling __orichalcum. __The __myriad __of __colors __bled __through __the __metal, __moving __like __stormclouds__. __I __waited, __and __when __I __was __convinced __that __enough __time __had __passed, __I __took __a __chisel __and __cracked __away __the __mold. __A __familiar-looking __mask __fell __into __my __hands, __not __yet __disguised __with __an __ivory __shell. _

I said nothing, of course. I only stared at Godchaser, who blinked owlishly at me, as if she couldn't imagine what I was thinking.

Finally, Sam sighed in defeat. "You're a good man, Recluse. No bastard could make up that bit you did last night about diamonds and the sun and all of that. I don't know who it is you're afraid of, but I won't tell a soul about this. Although you should definitely be more careful!" Without another word, Sam walked away.

"Well, that didn't go so bad!" Godchaser chirped, breaking the silence between us. "In fact, I doubt he even knows you're a Solar!"

"Godchaser, do _not_ say that word!" I warned. "Sam might still be listening!" I sighed in defeat. "Look, I didn't want it to come to this, but there are some things that I am going to have to order you not to do anymore."

"Okay!" She agreed readily. "I'll make a list!"

"It'll be a short list." I paused. "First rule. You will be absolutely silent when I tell you to! No talking, no laughing, no sighing or anything! Not a single noise, not even a whisper! No one can know that you're alive!"

"But..." Godchaser protested.

"No buts! These are orders, remember?" I paused. "Do you understand what an order is?"

"I have to do what you say." Godchaser replied. "Even if I don't like it."

"Yes, you do. You had better start listening to me or Sam's right. I'm going to leave you behind!" I said.

"I'd follow you!" Godchaser vowed.

"You still can't teleport! You can barely hover!" I reminded her. "Not more than a foot or two, and it costs you more Essence than you have currently."

"You're being horrible, reminding me of that." She remarked with distaste.

"You need reminding. Things are not the way you think! The world is different now, and it is a very dangerous place for both of us!" I informed her. "Now for the second rule. When we are talking, even when it seems like we're alone... there a few things that you still absolutely cannot say! It's bad enough if someone overhears you giggling, but certain words are even worse. For example "Caste Mark".

"That's two words." Godchaser corrected me.

"Treat it like one. Don't say "Caste Mark", don't imply that I have one and _definitely _don't ask me to "turn it on"! I ordered her.

"Okay, so I'm not going to say "Caste Mark". Why do you not like those words... _word_?" Godchaser demanded, correcting herself.

"It's not a matter of what I like or don't like! It's about what's going to get us in trouble!" I sighed in defeat. "And the next word that you're not allowed to say is the _other_word you just said! _Exalted_. Do not say that word! Ever! Don't even whisper it! And don't say _Solar_! Or _Twilight_! People know that it means the same thing as _Unclean _and..."

"It does not!" Godchaser was absolutely aghast. "_Unclean _means you don't bathe! It means you do bad things or have bugs under your skin! _Twilight_ means you're like _you_ are, Maker. Like a diamond!"

I bit my lip slightly. Was I never going to escape that idiotic monologue of mine? I'd been trying to explain something that was very literal from my perspective. Sam had somehow turned it into a metaphor for the whole of Creation and Godchaser had taken it as a discourse on the saintliness of Anathema! "Godchaser, to normal people it means the same thing! That's what I've been trying to explain to you. If what I am is as great as you think it is... then why is everyone in Creation trying to kill me? And you can't say they're all stupid because that isn't true!" I finished.

"Maker!" She protested.

"No, don't call me "Maker"! If Sam tells anyone about you, I'm going to have to pretend that I stole you or found you somewhere! I can't be your Maker, Godchaser! Not without being Anathema!" I sighed heavily. It felt very strange saying those words... especially since I'd protested that I was "not" Godchaser's "Maker" more times than I could count. But after what I'd just remembered, I couldn't bring myself to deny our connection. Though I still didn't know how I'd built her or why, I was sure that Godchaser _was _my creation. I _had_ made her in a previous life, which was why I'd been able to resurrect her when Dragonlord Chiron had brought her to me. Was what had happened to me inevitable? Had there _always _been a demon buried deep in my soul, waiting to be released?

"But if I can't call you Maker, then what do I call you? I'm not going to use that A-word. I don't like it at all!" She protested.

"I didn't say you had to use it. I don't like it either. And you'd better not say it, because that will get us in trouble too." I sighed.

"But... but I've always called you Maker!" Godchaser protested. "That's what you are to me!"

I realized belatedly trying to stop Godchaser from using that word was something akin to forbidding a child from saying "mother".

"All right, you can call me "Maker". "But quietly, and you're still not allowed to say any of those other words! Now will you stop shouting and making a scene? How are you working? Are you still losing Essence, or are you okay now?" I asked.

"Yes, _fine_, yes and no." Godchaser replied, answering each of my questions as succinctly as she possibly could.

"Are you not okay because you're broken?" I pressed.

"I'm not okay because _you're_broken." She retorted.

It was the last thing she would say for a long while.


	4. Chapter 4 - The Wandering Monk

**Chapter 4 – The Wandering Monk**

When I finally succeeded in gathering up all of my tools, I returned to our campsite only to discover that Sam was gone. I had to believe he'd betrayed his promise and probably knew that I was a demon. Still, I was dead tired and I needed as much sleep as I could get, particularly if I was about to start fleeing for my life. I made sure that Godchaser was meticulously sewn back inside of my cloak and quickly packed away my tools, conceding to use the mark on my brow for light.

I slept surprisingly well. The first thing I saw when I woke was a pair of young soldiers dressed in the colors of the Ravenous Winds. My heart skipped a beat and I stared up at them in horror. I thought they were about to kill me.

"You all right?' The first soldier wondered. She was short and squarely built with sandy blond hair and a nose that would have been oversized and unattractive even on a boy. Her weapon of choice appeared to be a very fine northern war ax, as meticulously cared for as the blue lamellar armor she wore, a single silver pins fastened to the stark white collar of her gambeson. She was just barely an officer, quite an accomplishment for a mere mortal... and obviously very proud of her new station.

"You didn't put your campfire out all of the way." The young man beside her had the look of an Earth Aspect Dragonblood. He was also an officer, just slightly outranking his companion and he carried a pair of swords that I did not doubt were family heirlooms. A Dragonblood outranking a mortal was to be expected... although he did stand slightly behind the girl, as if he were inclined to let her have her own way. "We thought someone might have beat you up and left you for dead." He admitted.

"Oh no, I'm fine. I was just sleeping. You startled me, that's all." I lied.

Clearly, they didn't know who I was... which meant that they hadn't been sent by Sam. I could only hope that he hadn't told anyone what he'd witnessed yet.

"Well, I'm Fanglord Natsume Cheng and this is Wara Isha, my first officer." The Dragonblood gestured to his companion. "We serve Mnemon Rai Jin."

"Old Thunderstormer calls us "Hack" an' "Slash". I'm "Hack". Cheng's "Slash"." Isha explained. "I suppose you've seen a lot of us Winds on the road these past few days, eh?" She hazarded a guess.

"A few." I admitted.

"Well, you ought to see a lot more. We've all been called up!" Isha proclaimed.

"Is there trouble?" I asked nervously.

"Is there ever!" Isha laughed. "Y'see, Cathak Lo..."

"Isha, that's enough!" Cheng scolded, cutting her off. "You can't tell _everyone_ we meet about our orders!"

"That's fine, it's really none of my business." I paused, trying to disentangle myself from our conversation. "Thank you for seeing if I was hurt. But I should start walking." I admitted. I did notice that Isha had very nearly told me about the same officer that Sam had also sung the praises of, Cathak Loren. Whoever he was, his contingent of loyal followers that very nearly bordered on a cult.

I picked up my things and kicked a bit more dirt on the remains of my campfire. The wood had burned out and the ground was wet enough that I didn't anticipate any trouble with sparks.

"Are you going to Chio?" Isha pressed. "We're going to Chio."

I didn't have time to work out a lie. Cheng observed the expression on my face effortlessly. He laughed. "We're not trying to give you trouble. It's just that you obviously don't belong out here alone. What's your trade?" He gestured to my toolbox.

"I'm just a tinker." I replied. "And while I appreciate your concern, I don't need your help."

"It isn't safe to travel alone." Isha observed. "Not on these roads. We may still be on the Blessed Isle, but we're really out in the sticks. Snow Owls, Smoke Clan, bandit monks... you name it. You ought to come with us before someone really does rob an' kill you. You can ride on the back of one of our supply wagons!" She volunteered.

"I can't impose." I protested.

"It's not an imposition." Cheng replied. "Us Winds don't like to leave a trail of dead travelers in our wake while we're marching. Old Thunderstormer won't stand for it." It was obvious that whatever I might have said fell upon deaf ears and before I could change my destination, I was back on the road accompanied by Isha and Cheng as well as a twenty other young soldiers, all members of Cheng's Fang. They said nothing all day about any Anathema and an awful lot about Cathak Loren, whom I gathered was Isha's favorite person outside of Cheng. I wasn't able to sort out exactly what sort of relationship the young Fanglord and his first officer actually had until after dark.

The Winds insisted that I camp with them for safety, even going so far as to pitch me a little tent. I found out very quickly that I was not liable to get any sleep, however... not with all of the noise that my "rescuers" were making in the bushes nearby. I waited until all of the camp was asleep, with the exception of one drowsy sentry, and then decided to make a break for it.

Fleeing along the road would only get me caught again, so I made my way out into the rice fields that ran along the river, knowing that the river itself ran all the way to Chio. After about two hours of walking, I suspected that my escape had succeeded.

"I don't know if I can keep up with this outrageous amount of running. And who knew that the Blessed Isle was so damned big?" I sighed heavily. "At this rate I'll be in the best shape of my life by the time we get to Nexus!" There was no response. I immediately checked Godchaser's hearthstone. She seemed to be in working order, but she gave no sign that she heard me, despite the fact that no one else was present to overhear us.

That was when I remembered the last conversation that we'd had.

"Godchaser, I'm sorry." I paused, waiting for her to respond. She had definitely heard me, but she seemed to hesitate.

"I'm sorry too." Godchaser sighed. "I don't want you to get hurt, Maker. But it makes me so sad that you think you're like they say. You're not a demon!" She protested.

"I wish I could believe that. But you don't know what the world is like now, Godchaser. You've been asleep for 1,500 years! Everything is different now." I told her.

"Not everything! You're still my..." She didn't finish her sentence but I could guess what she''d been about to say. One of my forbidden words for certain.

I looked out over the rice paddies. Several of them were not faring as well as they should have been. Though I didn't know anything about farming, I suspected there was something wrong with the irrigation system. Sure enough, the water level was much lower in the paddies that were starting to turn brown.

"These rice paddies are drying out. They're not getting water for some reason." I mused. I'd meant to talk with Godchaser, but the condition of the rice paddies was distracting. "There must be a problem somewhere around here."

"So find it and fix it!" Godchaser sighed.

"It's too dark, I can't see anything." I replied.

"Then fix the dark!" Godchaser sighed.

"Fix the dark?" I smiled slightly. "Godchaser, how do I "fix" the dark?"

"Ugh! Maker, I can't say what I want to say, because the words I need are on your stupid list!"

"Excuse me?" I demanded, smiling slightly despite myself.

"Stupid list!" Godchaser repeated.

"Well, I'll take a quick look." I paused, feeling around in my pockets to see if I was still carrying anything potentially useful. I had a flat file handy, which meant that I wouldn't have to dig through my currently disorganized toolbox... or risk losing anything in the rice paddy.

Ignoring Godchaser's cheerful humming, I removed a few of the boards beneath our feet with my file and peered into the irrigation ditch... using my brand to "fix the dark" just long enough to pinpoint the source of the problem. It took me only a few moments to remove the moldly old rice sack that had been blocking the flow of the water. I closed everything back up as if I'd never touched it at all and smiled slightly as the water began to run again.

That was when I discovered that I had an audience. I heard a cough behind me. I turned slowly and at first didn't see anyone... but then my eyes came to rest on a tiny little farmer with an inordinately large, potato-shaped head carrying a bag of rice twice the size of his body. His eyes reflected the light of the moon and looked a bit like a pair of undercooked eggs. I knew what he was instantly, although I'd never actually seen a little God before.

It was no secret that there were many thousands of Gods in Creation, but precious few of them were ever seen on The Blessed Isle. In an attempt to root out dangerous peasant cults that ran the gambit from dancing for rain spirits to making blood sacrifices for demons and fair folk, the Immaculate Order enforced a state of religious uniformity called the Perfected Hierarchy. In the Hierarchy the Immaculate Dragons occupied the supreme position and all of the little Gods were below them, each one accorded a certain feast day but prevented from gaining too much power.

Little Gods were capricious, and it was dangerous to let them believe that they deserved too much. I was suddenly very glad for the snippets of Old Realm that I'd learned from Godchaser, because the The God of the Rice Paddy seemed very intent on speaking to me, and Old Realm was the language that he spoke. He was obviously convinced that I could understand him, and I felt oddly embarrassed that I didn't.

"Godchaser, what is he saying?" I asked.

"I can't tell you!" She protested.

"Oh, I know you can! He's speaking Old Realm! Tell me what he's he saying!"

"No, I can't tell you! Because of your stupid list!" She argued.

"Forget my list! I've never met a God before! I want to know what he's saying to me! Tell him to start at the beginning, and go slower!" I ordered.

As Godchaser translated my words, I committed what she had said to memory. Now that I had seen firsthand that Old Realm truly was the language of the Gods, I was much more eager to learn it. And of course, the first thing any student of a language learns is how to say "_I'm __sorry, __can __you __repeat __that_?" and "_Would __you __please __slow __down_?"

Godchaser sighed. "All right, this is what he says. But you're not going to like it." She paused.

"His says his name is Mochi and he is the God of the Rice Paddies on the South Bank of The Silver River. He greets you. Specifically he says "_Thank __you, __Oh __Lord __of __Creation._" Then he says that he knew that a great Twilight Caste had Exalted not far from here, but that he did not expect a mighty Solar such as yourself to take such interest in his humble fields. He apologizes that he did not recognize you until he saw your Caste Mark. If he had known you were coming, he would have greeted you earlier, and summoned all of his friends. Also, he is sorry to see that you have mud on you, Sun-Chosen, because one such as yourself should not be covered in the humble dirt of his insignificant rice paddy. He thanks The Unconquered Sun, the greatest of the all Gods for sending you to aid him in his time of distress. He wishes for you to always have plenty of rice on your table. And..."

"And?" I pressed.

"There are two more places where the water is not flowing. He'd be most grateful if you would have a look at them." Godchaser finished.

"He wants me to fix something else?" I wondered.

"That's pretty much the gist of it." Godchaser sighed. She sounded annoyed, but I was intrigued. As much as I didn't like hearing so many grandiose words of praise heaped upon me, I was too intrigued by the little God to simply return to bed.

"That's great! Tell him to show me where!" I replied.

I ended up working most of the night for the God of the Rice Paddy as he came up with project after project for me. I wondered what the poor farmers would think when they found my handwork and suspected that poor little Mochi would probably get a few more heartfelt prayers than usual. I caught a few hours sleep just before dawn and awoke to discover two tiny rice cakes wrapped in white linen lying beside my tool chest. It was a small gesture in light of all the work I'd done, but considering the size of the God who had left them, I didn't think it was right to complain. In any case, they were the best breakfast I could have wished for.

Travelling along the river was slower than taking the road but the weather was certainly preferable and I saw only a few soldiers which was a tremendous relief. When the river port of Chio came within sight I ducked into the bushes just long enough to ensure that Godchaser was well-hidden. After no one stopped me passing through the city gates, I mentally congratulated myself for outwitting Cathak Chiron and escaping the entire Abbey of Mela, the Snow Owls and whoever else had been assembled to bring back my branded head on a pike.

While I still wasn't entirely reconciled with the idea of being Anathema, I'd had a remarkable success in orchestrating my escape so far. Even Sam who'd caught me red-handed working on Godchaser didn't seem to think that I was a demon. Perhaps I would make it to Nexus after all! And in a far-off city with a good alias, I could start a new life for myself

Of course, that was when I heard the sound of a horse trotting up behind me.

"Hey, Copper! Copper Spider!" Sam exclaimed.

The moment I heard him speak that outrageous sobriquet, my rosy little vision of the future was shattered irreparably.

I glanced up slowly, squinting at his silhouette. The sun was directly behind Sam's head, making his face impossible to see but his smile was unmistakable. The other two young Winds that I had met, Cheng and Isha followed him. They seemed surprised to see me, and Cheng looked a little nervous. Sam was obviously bubbling over about something, and I gathered from the expression on his face that he was about to tell me what. I hadn't seen my suspicious travelling companion since the night he'd discovered Godchaser and I frankly hadn't expected to see him again at all.

"You came from the north, right?" Sam pressed eagerly. It was as if nothing had changed between us at all.

"North-ish." I replied, saying nothing.

"Did you hear about the Anathema that they found?" He asked.

"Anathema?" As apprehensive as I was becoming, I hoped I still sounded surprised and not nervous.

"Oh, yeah! Everybody in Chio is talking about it! Apparently it's one of the worst Unclean ever! A real legendary monster!"

I'd been Anathema for two weeks and I was already legendary? I tried not to appear shocked.

"Y'see, Dragonlord Cathak Chiron and his Scarlets found the mummy of an ancient Anathema near Lookshy like forty years ago. It was dead and they burned its bones and said prayers to all the Dragons for protection but somehow it came back to life!" Sam explained. "Not as a ghost I mean, that wouldn't be anything special... but the Anathema actually came back from the dead! Like it had never been killed it at all!"

"Impossible!" I protested. That wasn't the story that Dragonlord Chiron had told me at all!

"I've heard that it's completely unstoppable! It flies and its eyes incinerate anything that it looks at!" Isha proclaimed. Like any young soldier, she loved the sound of a good fight. I felt bad hearing that, knowing that her endearing enthusiasm would probably land her on the front lines of some horrible battle in the near future. I was no expert on military matters, but I'd heard something from Abbot Manu once that had stuck with me. There was no such thing as a zealous _old _soldier.

"You don't really believe that kind of nonsense do you?" I demanded, trying to downplay the story that was already spreading like wildfire through the throngs of travelers waiting to enter Chio.

"Believe it? My cousin is a monk! He saw it!" Sam explained. "He's the one who brought the message to Chio! He saw the Anathema fly out a window and cast a spell in midair! It's so powerful that it was able go _inside_ of an Immaculate monastery without bursting into flames! Although my brother did say something about it being on fire after it blew the whole roof off the Abbey of Mela! He also said it has a _spider _for a head!"

I laughed despite myself. Everyone might have stared at me... but Isha also laughed at Sam's dramatic claim and her voice carried much better than mine did.

Sam's story had begun to make me very nervous, at least until he'd added that last ridiculous bit. If half of the Realm's soldiers were looking for a demon with a spider for a head, perhaps I was safer than I thought, particularly since Godchaser was now disguised as a simple gray cloak.

It did bother me that Sam didn't seem to think that there was any connection between the story he'd heard in Chio and my own strange secret, however. Then again, even when he'd seen Godchaser glowing, she'd still looked very much like a piece of clothing with a face. I imagined if he'd actually seen all of her tendrils flailing that things would have been very different. I'd be very dead at any rate, with Mnemon Rai and all the Ravenous Winds coming after me. As if it wasn't bad enough that I already had the entire Abbey of Mela and Dragonlord Chiron on my trail!

Of course, there was also the possibility that Sam was hiding something himself, which would certainly explain why he hadn't told any of the Winds about Godchaser.

"You think that's funny? Anathema are serious business!" Cheng protested. He was looking at his second officer, not me.

Isha giggled. "I know, Cheng! I'm sorry, but I just can't imagine someone with a spider for a head! It's too ridiculous!"

"No, demons are weird like that!" Sam laughed. "Anyway, my cousin is probably waiting for us at _The Winking Lizard_ right now. He's not a very good monk and he likes to drink a bit when he comes to town. You should come hear the whole story from the beginning!" He proclaimed.

"I'm actually meeting someone in Chio and I'm afraid I don't have the time." I lied. "Good luck on your mission, Winds. Thank you for helping me. Stay alive!" I added. Though I should have considered the young soldiers my enemies, I couldn't help but like them... and I was certain that whatever they'd been called up to face was probably very dangerous.

Cheng nodded and Isha smiled slightly. Sam was grinning from ear to ear, as pleased to meet me as he had been upon our first encounter, as if he remembered nothing of what he'd seen only two nights ago. Not for the first time, I found myself hypnotized by his peculiar yellow eyes. "You too, Spider!" Sam replied, slapping me soundly on the back, missing one of Godchaser's tendrils by less than an inch. "I hope you find wherever it is that you're looking for. And don't forget to have some fun along the way!" He advised.

"I'll try." I promised, waving goodbye to Sam as Cheng shoved him roughly into the bar.

I kept walking until I'd nearly left Chio out of the southern gate of the city. While I still planned to earn my own passage to Nexus by working on board a ship, I suspected that I would not convince anyone that I was a skilled professional without some better clothes and a small amount of coin to grease a few palms. I stopped at the sorriest looking teahouse I could find and volunteered my services in exchange for something to drink.

The owner of the teahouse immediately put me to work fixing a stubborn window in her kitchen. Satisfied with my efforts, she fed me a substantial supper and then sent me across the road to her neighbor's inn, recommending that I ask him for more work and a place to sleep.

Although I knew that I needed to get out of Chio as quickly as possible, doing repairs in various businesses during day gave me money and kept me off of the street where I might be recognized. It also provided me with different accommodations every night, and whenever my employer did not already know my name, I used a different alias. Of course, I still slipped up quite a few times and introduced myself as "Recluse".

After I had been in Chio for several days, rumors were beginning to spread about a "tinkering spider" who could fix anything and only charged a nominal fee for his services. Despite my low prices, I'd been productive enough that I'd already made a fair amount of coin, enough to pay for passage to Nexus outright. I'd also purchased myself new clothes and enough supplies that I could survive in the wilderness for a week if I needed to.

Godchaser had been remarkably quiet since our arrival in Chio, partly because her hearthstone was still failing. Whenever I worked somewhere without supervision, I would seize the opportunity to give her a little Essence but she still spent most of her time "_dozing __off"_ or "_not __paying __attention_". Sometimes I had to say her name aloud several times before she would respond. When I succeeded in repairing her "hover" function, she replied simply that she was "_too __tired_" to test it. While I knew I could probably sustain her indefinitely with my Essence, I knew that I needed to sort out the problem with her hearthstone immediately.

I should have set out as soon as I was able to purchase a decent pair of shoes, but I was enjoying my work a bit too much and decided to take on one more job when I heard about a bad boiler at an inn called _The __Lady __Sailor_.

"Yah, the boiler's worthless!" The barkeep told me with a groan. He had a peculiar accent that made me suspect he might be from the West and a glass eye that didn't focus on anything besides the ceiling. Everything about him seemed to suggest that he was a disreputable character but I ignored my own instincts. Whatever kind of scoundrel he might be, he was still human... and that was more than I could say for myself.

"I can't pay you, but get it running and it will earn you a bed for the night and a meal." The bartender continued. I tossed my pack near the bar and followed him down the steps, past rows of kegs containing both ale and wine. Though the inn was not very large, the cellar was fairly sumptuous and a flight of stairs on the opposite side of the room suggested that it was shared with a second building.

"What's in there?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Nothing." He said that in a manner which convinced me that there was most definitely something behind that door, but it wasn't mechanical and I wasn't going to pry. I stared instead at the enormous boiler, so ancient I couldn't guess its age. It looked like it belonged in a bathhouse, it reeked like rust and mold and was far warmer than it should have been to the touch.

"Can you fix it?" He asked.

"What's it doing?" I inquired.

"More a question of what it's not doing." He replied. "It's not doing anything,"

"I see. I can fix it." I replied.

The bartender snorted, not believing my brave claim for one instant.

I waited until he was gone and the door was closed behind him. "Godchaser?" I whispered.

My companion did not respond or give any sign that she had heard me. I sighed heavily and set to work, moving my lamp a few inches to the left and opening my toolbox to set up one of my little mirrors. When I still could not see far enough under the boiler to pinpoint the source of the problem, I sighed heavily in defeat and made my own light. Truthfully, doing so was beginning to feel very natural to me... but that was not something I wanted to admit to Godchaser. I knew she'd only say something outrageously smug in response.

The less Godchaser spoke to me, the more time I had to worry over my own condition. Though I'd grown to appreciate how a sufficient application of Essence might solve any problem, the ease with which I accomplished even difficult tasks left me feeling like more of an outsider than ever before. Even when I'd been the darling of Dynastic social circles, I had not noticed so many eyes upon me, watching everything I did in bewilderment and wonder. At what point had I stopped being an artisan and become a sorcerer?

The thought of working true magic still did not sit well with me. I remembered what had happened in my tower workroom as if it were a dream. Everything but the expression on Dragonlord Chiron's face and Godchaser's first glorious manifestation seemed fuzzy in my memory. I particularly struggled with the recollection that I had most definitely cast some sort of spell as I leapt out the window. Part of me wondered if I could do such a thing again.

Then I remembered the corona of light that had blossomed all around me, how brilliant and unmistakable it had been, clearly something that had no place in Creation. Why was I so tempted to test my limits? Shouldn't I have been praying for deliverance instead? Why couldn't I stop myself from putting my filthy, cursed hands on everything that I could?

Upon closer inspection, I realized that the boiler I was working on suffered from a fundamental design flaw, a crack that expanded and spit steam in all directions every time the water within was heated. The whole monstrous thing would have to be drained before it could be fixed properly... at least by any mundane craftsman.

Eager as I was to be gone from Chio, I put all of my tools away, laid my right hand upon the boiler and simply told it that it was fixed. Fine strands of golden Essence flowed from my fingertips and filled the almost invisible cracks in the metal, the light departing from them as I pulled away from the device. No one would be able to tell what I had done unless they looked very closely, and even then, the quality of the weld would surely baffle them. I knew that Dragonblooded had Charms that aided them in crafting artifacts but I had never heard of anything like the ability that I possessed. In all likelihood, the small section of the boiler that I had fixed would remain long after the rest of the long-suffering boiler rusted into oblivion.

Godchaser giggled.

"You're awake?" I smiled slightly despite myself as my companion rose up from where I had left her. She looked a bit like a ghost as she drifted towards me, obviously pleased to be able to move under her own power again. Her motion was not at all graceful... it was uneven, up and down and faltering intermittently, but once I sorted out whatever was causing the trouble with her hearthstone I suspected the problem would be easily solved. My own skills in that regard were improving at an alarming pace.

"Ah. I see your hover function works." I observed.

Obviously very pleased with my efforts, she twirled in a little circle. When Godchaser hovered, she looked even more like a person than she normally did, and having some semblance of a body obviously pleased her. She still occasionally commented that she would like to have hands of her own, and though I toyed with the idea of building something so wonderfully complex, I knew that I couldn't do such a thing without access to magical materials and special tools.

"There's still _something_ wrong with it. But if I had arms, I would hug you!" She proclaimed.

"I'm not building you arms." I replied.

"I would hug you!" She repeated.

"Tempting, but _no_." I heard a sniffling sound nearby and for a moment I thought that Godchaser was making a nuisance of herself. "And don't cry, you ridiculous machine!"

"I'm _not_ crying!" Godchaser replied flatly. "Someone else is."

That was when I heard it again, the sound of a faint muffled sob. I got down on my knees and put my ear on the wall. The sound was still faint, but the wall was most definitely wood and not stone. Taking one of my files, I pried it l open and peered into almost pitch-black darkness.

Godchaser gives a low whistle. "Maker, you should see this." Without a warning or a word of explanation she hovered over to me and settles over my shoulders with a dramatic sigh.

"Are we alone?" I asked her.

"Yes." She replied. "I think."

My work lamp was too far away, but as Godchaser so often commented, I was never truly trapped by the dark. Steeling myself for whatever I was about to see, I called up my mark. The usual color of the light was actually rather nice, but even bathing that room in a rosy golden glow did not make it look anything less like a butcher's shop sharing space with a Sijanese mortuary. The tables were littered with books, candles, packages of foul-smelling herbs and bones, some of which looked awfully human. There were the fresh bloodstains on the walls.

"This is _bad_." I whispered.

"We should get out of here. Now." Godchaser agreed.

"Not so fast! We both heard someone crying!" I argued.

"We should get out of here." Godchaser repeated.

"We will! Just let me look first!" I sighed.

Listening closely, I found the source of the sound I had heard. It was a box with a lock on it underneath one of the work tables in the center of the room. I might have called it a coffin if it had been longer, but not even a very small person could have been laid out straight inside of it. When I put my ear to the lid, I could hear breathing inside.

"Hello?" I whispered in Low Realm.

There was a muffled sob in response. It sounded like a child.

"There's someone inside this box!" I gasped.

"We should get out of here." Godchaser argued, as if she could say nothing else.

"Stop saying that! We can't leave anyone like this, it's inhumane! I'm getting my tools!" I argued. I tried for a few minutes to convince the lock to budge, and when that didn't work I simply closed my fist around it and ordered it to shatter. Then I lit a candle and quelled the light radiating from me so that the first thing that the girl inside would see would not be some predatory Anathema looking down on her. I couldn't imagine what she'd already been through.

I opened the lid. Inside the box, almost completely naked and streaked with blood and grime was a very petite young girl, probably no more than fifteen years old. Her head had been shaved and her pale skin was covered in fine, cruel scars. Someone had been torturing her for an unthinkably long time, long enough for her wounds to heal completely and then be opened again. She had a few fresh marks too, all made by that same ruthless knife. One of them looked badly infected.

Though she was bound hand and foot, she thrashed her neck like a wild horse when she saw me.

I put a finger to my lips. "Quiet." I warned.

"Get me out of here!" She begged, the moment I cut the strip of cloth that she'd been gagged with. "Please!"

"I am getting you out of here." I replied, cutting the bonds on her wrists and ankles. "What's your name, girl?"

"Dove." She replied, nervously watching me as I worked.

"Well, you can call me Recluse. Like the spider. Can you stand up?"

She nodded and I helped her to her feet. Immediately, she tried to run for the door. I caught her as she stumbled and fell.

"No, no! Wait until you can feel your legs! And put some clothes on!" I took off my shirt. I'd traded my old clothes and a few hour's work for something else to wear on my second day in Chio and although I liked having a dozen more pockets, Dove was practically naked. Small and frail as she was, my shirt almost looked like a dress on her.

"Now where's your family?"

I immediately regretted asking that question. The expression on Dove's face was awful. What had her family done to her?

"Port Calin." She replied.

"Heh. I thought that was a Rivertongue accent you have. Well, you're a long way from home. I was born in Nexus myself." I paused. I switched to Rivertongue, knowing I was about to ask another question that the poor girl wouldn't want to answer. "Dove, how did you end up in that box? "

She said nothing.

"I need to know. If there are bad people coming..." I began.

"Recluse, there are horrible people coming! We need to go now! I don't care where! I don't have any family, I don't have anything at all! I'm a slave! My father sold me to pay his debts! The man who bought me wanted me for his bed and when his wife found out, she was so angry that she gave me to Ragara Sephora!"

Ragara was a Dynast's surname. "That's who put you in there?"

Dove nodded. "She's a monster! She's going to kill me tonight, I heard her say it! We have to go!" Dove tugged on my arm.

"Dragons, this is unbelievable!" A string of curse words escaped me, about half of them in Rivertongue and to my surprise, the rest in Old Realm.

"Maker! Now!" Godchaser hissed. Dove looked very confused, wondering where the voice was coming from. Godchaser dropped to the floor just as Dove would have caught sight of her, pretending to be an inanimate object. That was when I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

I quickly closed up my toolbox and offered Dove my hand. She didn't hesitate to take it, although she definitely stared at my "cloak".

"Was your cloak talking?" She wondered uneasily.

"Yes, and she might start doing it again. I promise I'll explain later. Now get behind me!"

Hearing the creak of a nearby door, I shoved Dove in the direction of the boiler, covering her mouth with my hand as I crouched down beside her in the shadows. The two of us waited there like a pair of trapped rabbits. I only hoped we wouldn't be seen before we could make a break for the stairs.

Two very large men who looked like bodyguards came into the room, followed very closely by a richly dressed woman with long red hair and a very distinctive hooked nose. She was obviously a Fire-Aspect and looked like one of good breeding, probably a genuine Dynast. The sorceress blinked in surprise at the candle that I'd forgotten to extinguish.

"Search the room!" She ordered. I cursed under my breath.

"The candle!" Dove gasped.

"Oh, Maker! You never should have lit that candle! You should have just used your..." Godchaser began. She never actually said "Caste Mark". That was when Dove, unable to take the strain of waiting for a moment longer made the mistake of bolting for the door.

"Dove, no!" I shouted, leaping to my feet.

But it was too late. Dove shrieked and kicked as one of the bodyguards seized her and lifted her off the ground, his arms wrapped around her neck.

"What's this? How did you escape you little whore?" The sorceress demanded... and then caught sight of me. "Who the hell are you?"

"I was fixing the boiler." I replied, not answering her question. "That is, at least until I heard the sounds of someone being _tortured_ through the wall. What you've done here is reprehensible! You may think you're immune because you're wealthy and Dragonblooded, but no one gets away with sacrificing people! I'm reporting you to the authorities!"

"Report _me_?" The sorceress laughed. Her tone convinced me immediately that I'd missed something very important. "To whom? Fool, I own this town!" She snarled. Fire blossomed up all around her.

The Dragonblooded sorceress must have expected that I would immediately drop to my knees and apologize for insulting her when she flared her anima. The glare she gave me would have been enough to make me beg for my life... if I hadn't seen what I'd already seen.

I didn't care if Ragara Sephora was the Scarlet Empress herself! That didn't give her the right to sacrifice anyone, not even a slave girl with no surname, sold by her own parents and apparently sharing her master's bed. I wouldn't fool myself into thinking that Dove was completely innocent of any wrongdoing... but nothing she could have done would have made her deserving of the fate that Ragara Sephora obviously had planned for her. And nothing that sorceress wanted or needed could possibly be worth a human life!

"Now what do you have to say for yourself, you meddlesome tinker?" She demanded. "Well?"

"Let the girl go." I replied. "Now."

"You presume to give me an order? How dare you!" Ragara Sephora tried to slap me.

I caught her wrist. As she pulled free of my grasp, she called up her anima again, searing the palm of my hand. I'd been kicked around by Dragonblooded at the monastery more than once, but I'd never actually been burned by a Fire Aspect's Essence before.

"Ow!" I grimaced.

Sephora narrowed her eyes. She obviously didn't like the fact that I still wasn't cowering before her. "On your knees, mortal... and I may leave you the use of your legs!" She ordered.

"No." I replied without hesitation.

"What?" She hissed.

"You heard me. No! I am _not _going obey you! You _can't _make me!" Speaking those words felt wonderful and I realized belatedly that I had just behaved _exactly _like a legendary Anathema would, spitting on the Perfected Hierarchy and telling a Dynast to go to Malfeas.

I saw Sephora move long before she must have expected that I would and easily blocked her attack. She countered with a Fire Dragon Style move that I knew very well. Though I'd never been able to block the attack before, a sufficient cushion of Essence kept it from actually hurting me. The fact that I was still relatively unscathed prompted the sorceress to redouble her efforts and I continued to fend her off at every turn without striking her outright. The two bodyguards held Dove and stayed well back, looking suitably impressed by their mistress who was burning brighter and brighter. I was a little singed myself but not about to back down. Our fight worked its way out of the sorceress's workroom and we came to standstill three feet apart between two rows of wine casks.

"Last chance, mortal! Yield and live!" Sephora warned.

"I'm not going without the girl." I replied.

"This is _not _a negotiation!" She snarled.

"That's what I've been trying to tell _you_!" I shot back. Even though Sephora was a Dragonblood, it had become obvious to me that martial arts were not really her forte. I realized that I could probably beat her if our fight wore on much longer, which was undoubtedly why she had given me so many opportunities to surrender. But I did not have to cower before her or _anyone,_not anymore! Of course, I already knew that I held a distinct advantage over those who could not use Essence, but I hadn't actually expected to be faster and stronger than a Fire-Aspect!

An all-too familiar feeling came over me as I considered drawing more on my own Essence. As many times as I had needed to call up my mark as I traveled, I'd gotten used to what it felt like when it was visible, much different than when no one could see it. If I fueled any more Essence into my Snake Style, my mark was going to start burning whether I willed it to or not!

I had to end the fight as fast as possible, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a solution. I threw a wild, sloppy roundhouse kick at Sephora's head and as she swiftly dodged my incoming leg, I switched my target, landing a strong jumping back kick on the central support of the rack that held up the wine casks. As the rack groaned and swayed, the casks fell off one by one. Some broke on the floor and the rest rolled over the sorceress and her bodyguards. While they were distracted, I grabbed Dove and raced for the stairs.

"How did you do that?" Dove gasped.

"Mathematics!' I replied, seizing my toolbox.

As we barreled out into the bar, I saw my pack where I'd left it next to the counter. "Grab that bag!" I ordered, and weak as she was, Dove still managed to catch hold of it. "What's in here?" She demanded.

"Food and clothes. You're going to need both." I informed her. "And anything you can't use, you can sell."

"It's too heavy! We're going to die! We don't need anything!" She protested right as we reached the street.

"Please, trust me! We're not going to die!" I shouted back. Of course, that was when Ragara Sephora exploded out of the tavern's basement. Flames roared all around her and her wine-soaked, badly bruised bodyguards followed just a few steps behind, their bare swords glittering in the light of her anima.  
>Dove managed to keep pace with me as I lead her towards the river. We couldn't run from the Dragonblood indefinitely and I couldn't afford to use any more Essence, not if I didn't want to be revealed.<p>

Preoccupied as I was with my own impending death, I almost didn't notice Dove tugging on my sleeve. Much more forcefully, she grabbed hold of Godchaser who yelped in protest and shoved the both of us into a blacksmith's shed. Seizing a piece of bent iron from the workbench, the girl quickly barred the door. I wasn't sure which one of us was actually breathing heavier.

"This isn't going to work!" Dove whispered fearfully. "They're going to be here any second, and that bar won't stop them!"

She was right about that. It would take a divine act to get us out of the mess we were in... and if the Gods or the Dragons weren't going to have mercy on us, then I had no choice. I'd have to build us a miracle.

"Throw bricks, light a fire, something! Buy us time!" I ordered, taking off Godchaser. I opened my tool chest and took out my best pliers.

"Maker?" Godchaser wondered innocently. I didn't respond, tearing a hole in the fabric that concealed her chest plate. "What are you doing?"

I could hear a large crowd forming outside, following a safe distance behind Ragara Sephora and her men, who'd definitely found us. The bodyguards set to hacking at the door immediately. Sephora was doing something else, something that looked very familiar to me.

She was working sorcery!

"They're getting in!" Dove cried. As I'd asked her to, she was pitching bricks out the window with impressive strength for her tiny frame. The cursing I heard from Ragara Sephora's bodyguards suggested that her aim was also commendable.

I glanced briefly over my shoulder and grimaced, catching sight of the sorceress starting her spell. Fire whipped all around her. I had only one plan, and in order to accomplish it, I'd have to work fast. First I opened Godchaser's hover circuit and carefully attached my last fragment of orichalcum wire to it.

"Do something!" Dove cried as the blade of a sword tore partway through the door. "I'm running out of bricks!"

"I _am_ doing something!" I shot back. Taking a deep breath, I carefully lifted the tiny panel of strange silver metal that protected Godchaser's most sensitive component, the one which controlled her ability to teleport. It was a dizzying blur of little gears that moved and changed shape as I tried to catch hold of them. I had to feed the wire through the right one or what I was attempting to do would never work. It took me three tries and then I closed the panel. As I picked Godchaser up, a two foot section of fabric fell from her back, a piece I'd torn a little too zealously. I'd need to find myself another cloak.

"What... what is that inside of your cloak?" Dove blinked in disbelief. Dove's first reaction to seeing Godchaser was not any different than Sam's or my own had been. She was certainly an impressive device, even just from a physical standpoint.

"Ready to fly, dear?" I asked.

"Ooh!" Godchaser exclaimed, suddenly noticing what I had done to her hover circuit. "That's new!"

"You think it'll work?" I asked.

"I think so, but... I'm going to need _lots_ of Essence!" Godchaser decided.

"It's alive!" Dove gasped.

Dove stared at me. I knew my mark was visible, but she didn't seem to know what to make off it. I decided not to give her the opportunity to sort things out. I stood, wrapped Godchaser back around my shoulders and pulled Dove in close to me, making sure she was somewhat protected by the folds of my cloak. The fabric wasn't much, but it was better than what she was wearing, especially considering what I was about to attempt. Of course, the moment I started pouring large amounts of Essence into Godchaser, her tendrils came alive like a dozen angry snakes, making my cloak appear to billow around me even though there was no wind.

Dove tried to look up at me, but with how I held her, she could only really my neck and maybe my chin. "What... what _are_ you?" She whispered fearfully.

"Right now? A big damn hero!" I replied.

Gritting my teeth, I gave Godchaser as much Essence as I could and shielded Dove's head. For a moment it didn't seem to be enough, but just as Sephora's men succeeded in busting the door down, we shot up through the roof of the shed and into the sky.

The force of our take off was terrifying, and I'd severely underestimated how high and far my temporary linking of Godchaser's "teleport" and "hover" functions would send us flying. To make matters worse, Dove was screaming her lungs out in terror the entire time and Godchaser was cheering like a lunatic.

"_Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_!" She cried, as we reached the high point in our trajectory and started falling at a speed I knew I couldn't hope to control.

As best as I was able, I tried to control our landing so that most of the force would be split between Godchaser and myself. I saw a large hay pile and aimed for it as well as I could, wrapping my arms tighter around Dove and straightening out my body. The impact hurt, but after my head stopped spinning, I realized that I wasn't injured at all. I should have been, but I'd somehow used my own Essence to protect myself as I hit the ground.

And considering that both Godchaser and Dove had would up landing on top of me along with our food and my toolbox... I figured that everything had gone reasonably well. I sat up slowly and realized in shock that I recognized where we were. We'd landed in Windfall, the same small village where I'd met Sam nearly two weeks ago! We'd flown more than sixty miles in a matter of minutes! That was faster than being shot out from a cannon! Or... had we actually teleported? I wasn't sure.

Dove didn't say anything at first. She only clung to the pack that contained all of my food, my other supplies and the two pairs of socks I'd bought to keep my own feet warm. I told her to keep everything but she didn't even say thank you. She just stared at me as if she expected I would suddenly turn on her like a rabid dog. And she wasn't the only one.

Though it was after dark, more than a few villagers who'd been loitering around the Crossroads Inn had witnessed our dramatic fall from the heavens. They hid when I turned in their direction. Not that I blamed them. Since my escape from the monastery, I hadn't done anything so undeniably Anathema-like. And as if being a demon wasn't bad enough... I'd apparently also been cursed with an aura of ostentatiousness.

A golden flare of Essence was damning in its own right, but I'd discovered that the more Essence I burned, the more color poured out from me. After fueling Godchaser with everything she needed to attempt her maiden flight, I looked like an exploding fireworks factory. When I looked up, I realized that there was literally a _pillar_ of light surrounding me more than a hundred feet high that blazed with red, orange, blue, and gold. I felt tired and strained as I'd expected, but at the same time, I also felt the strangest sense of liberation.

When I raised my head, it was as if I could see straight up into heaven, as if a hole had been cut in the black night sky and the sun had been poured down through it. Tendrils of radiant Essence all around me shifted and assumed familiar shapes which reminded me of the inner workings of a very complex pocket watch. I touched one gold spark that looked like a small gear and it set to spinning, just as if it were a solid thing. It was definitely my Essence, and yet I could make it behave like a physical object! I immediately thought of tools. I'd lost some of my best wrenches rescuing Dove and they'd be extremely expensive to replace. But what if I could simply make them out of Essence when I needed them? It was an inspired idea!

That's when I remembered where I was standing, in front of a dozen nervous peasants, the twitchy innkeeper whose business I'd saved weeks ago... and of course, Dove.

She obviously didn't know what to do. I decided to give her a suggestion. "Do you see that road?" I pointed into the mountains. "If you follow that road north almost all the way into Snow Owl territory you'll reach a little village. The headman there is called Sun Yu. He and his wife are poor folks, but they're good people." Dove didn't pull away from me, but she did squint. I released belatedly that the light around me was so bright that it hurt her eyes... and so I took a few steps back, not that it was liable to do any good. "If Yu asks who sent you to him, you can tell him it was Recluse. That's the alias he knows me by. But _don't_... _please_, _don't _tell him that I'm Anathema."

Then I turned to walk away.

"Wait!" Dove called out. "Recluse!" When I looked at her, she covered her eyes and turned her face away from me. I guessed that from her perspective I looked even brighter than I did to myself. "What's your real name?" She asked.

"Veritas Ilumio." I replied, not having the heart to lie to her.

"Truth Illuminates?" Dove blinked in surprise, translating my name literally from Rivertongue into Low Realm. "You're the one they're looking for, aren't you?"

"And they're _definitely _going to find me if I don't get out of here _now_." I sighed heavily.

"Did you really used to be an Immaculate monk?" Dove wondered.

"_Yes_." I sighed heavily, taking off my cap. "As you can see, I'm still recovering from the obligatory haircut."

"But you're Anathema!" She protested.

"I wasn't always. It's nothing like they say. I wasn't spawned out of Malfeas! I didn't make a deal with any yozi! It just happened to me one day and I don't even know why! I'm really just an ordinary man."

"I find that very hard to believe." Dove smiled slightly. "You were flying a minute ago!"

"It was fun!" Godchaser giggled.

"And now your cloak is talking again." She observed.

"She never shuts up. Look, go on, you don't have to believe me! Just get out of here! It's only a matter of time before they figure out where we went! And if they catch you, they'll hand you right back to Ragara Sephora!" I warned her.

Still, Dove hesitated. "But I don't understand! Why did you save me? If you'd done nothing at all, they would have never known that you were..."

"Anathema?" I supplied.

"I..." Dove bit her lip. She hadn't wanted to say the word, that much was obvious.

"If I have to pick between saving someone who's done nothing wrong and saving myself, I'll save the innocent every time. I don't want to die, but I'm not stupid enough to think that I don't deserve to. It was the right thing to do." I finished.

Witnessing my conversation with Dove, some of the locals of Windfall were getting up the courage to step out of their houses. More than a few of them had weapons in their hands. It didn't look like they were coming after me for sure... more like they were just being careful and wanting to better understand what was going on.

"The right thing to do?" Dove echoed.

"I'm a demon, aren't I? I need all of the redemption I can get." I replied.

Dove wrapped herself tightly in the blanket I had given her and started trudging up the road. If she walked all night, she'd make it to the home of a farmer whose wagon I'd fixed before morning. And if she kept going for a few more days, she'd be in Sun Yu's village, probably safe. I could only assume that Ragara Sephora had intended to sacrifice her in order to summon a demon... and would likely find herself another more docile slave before giving up on her plans.

That thought troubled me. If I was a demon myself, as everything I'd ever believed told me I was... why did the thought of what the sorceress had planned to do to Dove make me so furious? And not only furious, but also sick to my stomach.

Had I made a mistake in running away from my own reckoning? Had I saved Dove now only to cause the death of another innocent girl like her when I became a monster?

I stopped short. I'd been repeating those words over and over and over again as I considered the future and hadn't even considered how illogical they sounded.

_ What __would __I __do __when __I __became __a __monster?_

I was already a monster! From an Immaculate Perspective, I'd been damned the first time I'd defied the Perfected Hierarchy and refused to accept my natural place within it. All of the suffering I'd endured was of my own making. The Dragonblooded were the rightful Lords of the Earth. They were Chosen, to protect and guide those less fortunate so that everyone might one day reach Enlightenment.

But if that was true... then why was it that everywhere I looked, I found Dragonbloods involved in more despicable business?

Political backstabbing. Wars! Human sacrifice!

I considered something that Godchaser had said, a strange little quip that had stuck in my mind.

_ People __were __broken. __They __needed __fixing._

But how could broken people be "fixed" when it was the world that they lived in which made them the way that they were? The whole of society would have to be torn down and rebuilt! And even as powerful as I was becoming, I still wasn't capable of simply swooping in like an Immaculate Dragon and fixing everything that was wrong with Creation!

_ Was __I?_

The combination of fear and awe in the eyes of Windfall's villagers as I slowly passed through their town left me feeling more conflicted than ever before. I turned to the sign at the crossroads and considered it for a moment. It was obvious there was no way I'd survive going back to Chio. That left me only one choice.

I'd have to find passage in the Imperial City.


	5. Chapter 5 - Fair Play

**Chapter 5 - Fair Play**

I ran most of the night, and when the sun rose I went to hide in the forest so that the patrols of soldiers thundering down the road towards Windfall wouldn't find me. Since Dove had all of my supplies, traveling was as unpleasant as it had been when I'd first come down from the mountains.

After two days with very little sleep and nothing in my stomach but some foul-smelling deer berries, I worked up the resolve that I needed to return to the road where I might barter for a good meal and a warm blanket. The Imperial City was still miles away, much further than the distance between the lands of the Snow Owls and Chio. If I managed to find passage in the tiny river port of Uzun, I could make it in seven or eight days. If I had to continue on foot the entire way, it would likely take me two weeks or even longer.

As long as I'd been on the road already, I wasn't intimidated by the prospect of walking but after what had happened in Chio, I was certain that Ragara Sephora had raised the alarm and probably conscripted all the Ravenous Winds currently assembling in her city into her own private Wyld Hunt.

The list of those who might come to kill me was growing by the day and yet somehow, I was much less afraid than I had been. Although I didn't doubt the resolve of Dragonlord Chiron and his Scarlets or the Abbey of Mela, I was no longer sure that any of them could bring me down. In a fair fight, I'd certainly lose... against an army, but I had no intention of fighting fair. Running... or "flying" away was a much better option.

Making it to my destination would still be the mother of all gauntlets, however. The only way I could survive was to lie low and not use any Essence whatsoever, a feat that I was beginning to believe was thoroughly impossible for an Anathema. Not long ago, using Essence had been as mentally and physically draining for me as running five miles in a strong wind... but since I had changed, it had become as simple to me as any other tool and more comfortable than most. It had always been a habit of mine to stay up very late tinkering and with all of Godchaser's persistent troubles I had no shortage of problems to solve.

More than once I worked until almost dawn and was forced to keep to the forest all day because I was sparkling somewhat. I spent much of my time in meditation, trying to conserve my energy with as little food as I was eating.

I continued on towards Uzun and occasionally stopped to chat with travelers along the road although I avoided showing my tools or volunteering my services unless I was in desperate need of food. I gave Godchaser as much Essence as I dared each evening after sunset and used none at all throughout the day.

On my fourth day after leaving Windfall, I discovered an overturned trader's wagon in the forest that had given me some raw material to work with, mostly tin and copper but also a small amount of silver gilt that hadn't been previously scavenged. I hoped that the wagon's unfortunate owners who had abandoned most of their possessions had at least escaped with their lives. I tinkered a little as I walked. I knew I'd need something for trade sooner or later, and one good piece of jewelry could buy me a week's worth of food. Still, I kept my focus on the road. There were no shortage of dangers in the wilderness, wild animals and bandits as well as fae... which were infinitely worse than either.

I had never actually encountered fae before, but I knew some of the ways to detect their presence. Strange wispy lights that drifted through the trees after dark were sometimes called "fairy lanterns" and hungry goblins were not above tearing apart wildlife in particularly gruesome ways. Any place touched by fae taint behaved unpredictably. Flowers took on unusually brilliant hues, the normal sounds of the forest changed, rivers flowed the wrong directions and other impossible, cacophonous things occurred all around.

As I neared the river port of Uzun, I began noticing every sign of Wyld taint that I had ever been warned of, and my heart very nearly skipped a beat when I saw an enormous tree standing completely upside-down, its topmost branches barely touching the ground and its roots reaching into the sky. There was something in the air that made my skin prickle.

"Fae." Godchaser whispered, venom in her tone.

At first I'd suspected that I had been misinformed about fae, given how so much that I'd thought I knew about Gods and Anathema had been proven false... but Godchaser despised fae even more than Sidereals, which left me convinced that they were as bad as all the stories made them sound. And powerful too, by the looks of things. I stared at the upside-down tree for a full ten minutes before I decided to keep going. Of course, the moment I turned away from the spectacle, I heard the sound of a silver flute. And so I turned back to see where it was coming from.

"No, Maker! We should go!" Godchaser protested. "Now!"

"In a minute." I retorted, following the music that was wafting through the trees like a man possessed. It was impossible to resist. Evil as the fae undoubtedly were, they were said to have an appreciation for those who were especially clever and I was curious to learn how a tree so enormous had been completely uprooted and made to stand on its own branches without breaking under its own weight.

Not far from the large upside-down tree was a grove of slightly smaller trees all similarly suspended in midair. Sitting on the roots of one such tree was a fae nearly the size of a man. He was dressed in leaves and had goat hooves for feet, long pointed ears, a crown of stag horns and eyes of pure, liquid green. The fae was undoubtedly the musician I had heard, and as I approached him he smirked at me, his unnaturally broad grin marked with a pair of wicked little fangs.

"My apologies." I said. "I didn't mean to interrupt you. I suppose you're the one who turned these trees upside-down?"

"And if I did?" The fae replied. His voice was like his flute, liquid, silvery, and impossible to ignore.

"Oh, I'm not looking for trouble. I'm actually rather curious as to how you did it." I admitted.

"I couldn't explain in any way that one such as yourself would understand." The fae laughed. "Now tell me, traveler... what are you doing so very far from the safety of the road?"

"The road isn't safe for me." I replied honestly.

"Odd. You don't look like someone who ought to be on the run." The fae observed.

"That's a very silly thing for you to say." I smiled slightly.

"Why so?" The fae wondered.

"Well, because you don't look like someone capable of turning large trees upside-down." I retorted.

That remark did draw a chuckle from the fae. "Well played, traveler! Have you a name?"

I saw no reason to lie. "Ilumio Veritas." I replied. "Or Recluse, it's all the same to me."

"Ilumio? That's Rivertongue, a Merchant House if I'm not mistaken? You're from the Scavenger Lands?" The fae wondered, raising an eyebrow in my direction.

"Only by birth. I was raised in the Imperial City." I replied.

"Still, an interesting name." The fae observed. "I'm rather surprised you gave it to me so readily. Most would try to use an alias. You're not afraid that I might use your name to ensnare you and bind you into servitude?"

"I wouldn't recommend that." I smiled slightly.

"Why, is that a veiled threat?" The fae gaped at me. "Who do you think you are, taunting a Knight of Cups?" He demanded, leaping down from his tree. He approached me slowly, sniffing me like an animal, obviously oblivious to the concept of personal space.

His eyes widened in disbelief as I brushed him away. I'd repaired my cloak as best as I was able to, but I'd had to cut apart some of the inner liner for patches which meant that from certain angles Godchaser's tendrils were actually visible, particularly when I lifted my arms.

The fae took a few hesitant steps back, watching me carefully. "Ah. On second thought, I seem to remember hearing a magnificent story this morning about a golden demon kidnapping a girl in Chio." He paused. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" He pressed.

"Kidnapping!" I gasped, too shocked to pretend that I didn't know what the fae was talking about. "I didn't _kidnap _her, I _rescued_ her!" I protested. "She was going to be sacrificed!"

"Oooh!" The fae exclaimed. "I was going to write a song about the whole debacle, you see... but I'm beginning to think that you must have a much more interesting version of the tale. Would you care to share it with a fellow monster?"

I gritted my teeth as he spoke those words. "Don't call me a monster! I'm nothing like you!" I protested.

"Of course you're not. I know that. But the world sees no difference between us, does it?" The fae taunted.

I sighed heavily and buried my head in my hands. The fae cackled gleefully and my face burned. He was right, and the thought was utterly humiliating!

"Graces, I'd almost forgotten how pathetic you Solars can be! Can you help but carry the weight of Creation on your shoulders? You love all those little mortals, don't you... even as they curse you! Those wretched Incarnae may believe that their favor is a gift, but when was the last time any of _them_ actually set foot in Creation? Believe me, I've no intention of adding to your burden, it's already beyond absurd. Do rest assured that not one of my kind will ever call you brother. And you will find that no self-respecting demon will make such a mistake either."

The fae paused. "But I do dearly love a good intrigue! So tell me what really happened, if you will... and perhaps we will be friends?"

I sighed and sat down on a nearby tree... not one of the upside-down ones, but one that looked to have been felled by natural means, probably a lightning strike. The fae crouched directly across from me on a boulder that I was certain hadn't been there only moments before. It appeared to have risen out of the ground as he desired a place to sit.

Not knowing where to begin, I started with how Himitsu had framed me for a crime I hadn't committed and how Abbot Manu had taken me in when I was destined for execution... or to lose one of my hands as a thief, which was worse than a death sentence from my perspective. I told the fae everything about how I had met Dragonlord Chiron and discovered Himitsu posing as his servant, of how the Dragonlord had given me Godchaser and what I had done to fix her. I confessed all of my own private thoughts and realized as I began describing how I'd met Dove that there was something very wrong with me.

Try though I might, I found that I could not tear myself away from the fae's soulless green eyes.

"How dare you!" Godchaser shrieked suddenly. Shocked by the shrillness of her voice so close to my ears, I immediately pulled away from the fae, staggering to my feet. My head was spinning.

The fae looked very surprised to hear Godchaser speak, and even more shocked as she flew off of my shoulders and directly into his face. She couldn't really hold him down, but her fiery eyes were narrowed. If she had hands, it was obvious that she would have used them to strangle him.

"My Maker is protected!" She snarled. "Maybe the Unconquered Sun is too busy with the Games but you should know that the Weeping Maiden is _always_ watching! Do you realize what you've done?"

The fae's eyes widened in horror. He gibbered some sort of apology and fled without a backwards glance, his upside-down trees crashing to the ground with his sudden departure and his boulder sinking back into the earth. Unsteady as I was on my feet, I clung to Godchaser who hovered firmly in place despite having my weight upon her.

"What was that about?" I wondered uneasily.

"He was trying to ravish you." Godchaser replied.

"I... I think I know that now." I grimaced, rubbing my temples. "But who is this Weeping Maiden that he was so afraid of?"

"I don't remember exactly." Godchaser admitted. "I just thought for some reason that any fae should be very afraid of her, and that she... I can't say."

"Spit it out." I sighed, knowing she had stopped on one of her forbidden words.

"The Weeping Maiden_ likes_ Twilights. She protects them. I don't know why." Godchaser explained.

"She protects me?" I wondered uneasily.

"Oh no, she _hates_ you! Or at least she _did _hate you, when you were still Perfect. You were always one of Autochthon's favorites, and his sort are far too orderly for the Maiden." Godchaser laughed. "But that fae, he wouldn't know if you were one of the Maiden's Twilights or not. So I made him think that you might be."

"You lied?" I smiled slightly, despite how dizzy and awful you felt. "You're brilliant!"

"I am as you made me." Godchaser replied smugly.

Still feeling nauseous, I headed in the direction of the road, finding myself a somewhat sheltered place to sleep. For the first time since I'd changed, my thoughts were raw and jumbled. I couldn't focus for more than a moment or two and the last thing I consciously remembered was Godchaser hovering over me and repeating something incoherent in Old Realm with a nervous expression on her face.

When I awoke, I was tied to a tree. It was sometime after sunrise but not yet midday. A fire burned very close to my feet, but not close enough that I could kick a piece of wood out of it. Fortunately, whoever had tied the gag around my mouth had not done a very good job about it. I spit out the dirty piece of gray cloth. "Help!" I shouted, not sure if anyone could actually hear me.

There was no response. Even Godchaser was nowhere to be seen.

I struggled to release myself from my bonds, but whoever had bound my wrists knew how to tie a good knot and my tools were on the opposite side of the smoldering fire pit. Someone had obviously rifled through them and probably taken the jewelry that I had made from the my metal scraps. I couldn't guess who my captors were, though I somewhat doubted that they were members of the Scarlets or the Ravenous Winds, mostly because I was bound and not dead.

I'd been awake but still bound for nearly an hour when I noticed a ghostly gray figure floating through the trees near the road. "Help!" I shouted again, not caring that I would make myself a very tempting and easy target.

Godchaser hovered to a stop before me and looked down on me in a particularly condescending manner. I smiled and shrugged slightly. I couldn't move more than a few inches and even when I pulled as hard as I could, the ropes around my wrists did nothing but cut into my skin. Godchaser hovered around me, surveying my predicament. "This." She remarked dryly. "Is exactly why you should make me _hands_."

"Cut it out. I know you want me set free!" I sighed heavily. "What can you do about the rope?"

"Nothing." Godchaser replied. "I need Essence."

"I'll bet you do. How long have you been hovering?" I wondered.

"Not long. We aren't very far from where they took you. I waited until I was sure that they were gone, and then I had to wait some more so that no one would see me crossing the road." She explained.

"Good thinking." I nodded. "So what now?"

"Now you make up a plan. And quickly too, because the ones who tied you up are coming back!" Godchaser informed me. I sighed heavily and she faltered slightly. She looked ready to say something else but then the light went out of her and she collapsed to the ground without another word, just a few feet in front of me. At first I thought that she'd exhausted herself... and then she winked at me mischievously. My captors had returned, and part of whatever plan I was supposed to formulate clearly involved Godchaser being mistaken for an inanimate object.

I evaluated the four men as they approached. An inexperienced eye might have called them monks, but I knew better. They were bandits, dressed in the simple fashion of the Immaculate Order solely so that they might subsist off of the charity of the ignorant between raids.

"Ah, it looks like our unfortunate traveler is awake!" The first bandit, obviously the leader, cackled.

"What's the meaning of this?" I demanded.

"Nothing personal. Easy pickings, that's all." He replied with a smirk. "Ravaged by fae, were you?"

I said nothing, but the bandit leader clearly knew that he had guessed right. "They save us a tremendous amount of work." He remarked casually. "It's almost a pity, really. Haven't had to draw my sword in months and still doing a brisk trade in slaves."

"And there's nothing at all in your black heart that tells you you've no business selling another person, least of all one in such a delicate state?" I demanded.

"You sound awfully lucid for running into fae." The second bandit observed.

"I'm a hard nut to crack. The fae succeeded in exhausting me but my faculties are perfectly intact." I replied. "Really, it would be better for you if you were to let me go."

"Huh, big words for a man tied to a tree." The leader snorted.

"Wait. What is this?" The third bandit wondered, reaching for Godchaser. "Dragons, it weighs a ton!" He exclaimed in shock as he picked her up and dropped her. I twitched slightly despite myself. The bandits laughed... that is, until their leader kicked Godchaser. My sloppy stitching came undone as she rolled over and light fell on her orichalcum carapace.

"Is that _gold_?" The leader stared in disbelief.

The bandits muttered to one another and then the leader turned back to me. "Where did this thing come from?" He demanded.

"I don't know." I lied. "It was here when I woke up."

He frowned at my sloppy bluff. "You'll speak or I'll kill you." The bandit leader warned.

"Loosen these ropes a little and I'll speak." I retorted.

"I loosen them and you'll escape." The second bandit interrupted. From the fancy work on his belt, I suspected he was the one who'd tied me in the first place. "Don't think we need whatever it is that you think you're hiding. Someone in Uzun will pay us good coin for that metal."

"Not good enough. Not nearly what it's worth." I replied truthfully. "And that's only if you can find someone capable of taking it apart." Though orichalcum looked like gold to the ignorant, it could not be worked so easily, requiring frightfully high temperatures or a large amount of Essence. "Someone will certainly swindle you if don't know exactly what you're trying to unload."

The leader of the bandits mused over what I'd said and then motioned for his knot-tier to loosen my bonds. "Right then, if you're so smart... what is it?" He demanded.

"_She _is a Ninefold Harmonic Essence Tracking Teleportation Device, third prototype. The Godchaser." I replied.

"_The _Godchaser?" The leader eyed me warily.

"Yes. She chases Gods and other beings by tracking their Essence. And she can teleport after them when they discorporate, so it's quite impossible for them to escape." I explained.

"Escape from _what_?" The leader demanded.

"From _me_." I replied, slipping my bonds and slowly standing.

"Clever!" The leader pointed his sword at me, chuckling slightly.

"Those were good knots. Until your friend here loosened them." I smirked. "I'll be going now." I informed him.

"You can't just walk out of here!" The second bandit snapped.

"Yes, I can." I retorted.

The third bandit, thinking he was being stealthy, came up behind me and I dropped him immediately with a backfist. With a hoot of savage glee, Godchaser leapt into the air and chased the leader of the bandits directly into a tree.

The fourth bandit ran without looking back, leaving only the knot-tier staring at me in disbelief. Seeing that he was alone, he attempted a very nice strike at my throat which I parried easily and then a clean sidekick that struck my chest forcefully enough to send me staggering a few feet back. I caught his next punch and he responded with a maneuver that made me suspect he had a good amount of training in some Immaculate style.

Possibly, he would even beat me... if I didn't have one more weapon at my disposal. I let him bar my right arm and force me to my knees, pretending that I was beaten. It hurt as he twisted my wrist almost to the point of breaking, but the moment he stepped around to look down at me, I saw my opening.

With a slight smirk, I glanced up at him over my left shoulder and flared my mark.

"Anathema!" He gasped, releasing me as if he'd just been burned. I reversed his maneuver and dropped him at the foot of the tree where he'd tied me. Using the same rope I'd been bound with, I tied him up first and then took care of his two unconscious companions.

"You tie a damn good knot, demon." The knot-tier observed.

"Can you get out of it?" I wondered.

"Our friend will cut us free when he returns." The knot-tier informed me.

"Do you honestly think he's coming back?" I sighed, my hands on my hips. The knot-tier hung his head in defeat.

"He's going as far as Uzun, where he'll tell everyone you three were eaten by demons and then drink until he can't stand." I informed him.

"Why didn't you kill us? The knot-tier demanded, glancing at his unconscious companions.

"No reason to. Incapacitating you was easier." I replied. "Strictly speaking, I don't believe in killing anyone. Your Water Dragon Style is not bad, by the way. Have you ever thought about actually becoming a monk?"

The knot-tier snorted. He was trying to seem nonchalant, but I could see that he was already worming his way free of the bonds I'd put on him.

Searching through the bandit's gear, I helped myself to all of their ill-gotten coin and then found an old sword with a particularly flimsy blade. While I didn't have what I needed to bend the metal in my toolbox, I had discovered that when I lacked a particular physical tool, I could do something quite spectacular. If I understood something inherently, I didn't need tools at all. I could simply use Essence to work the metal as I needed to. Of, course, crafting without physical tools made it very obvious what I was. Essence flared around my fingertips as I touched the metal and it obediently bent into the shape I desired. The knot -tier watched me work, awestruck and then grimaced as I fit him with a good pair of freshly forged shackles made from the blade of his own shoddy weapon. "That is still a sword you're wearing." I informed him. "Struggle too much and it will cut you."

"So you're leaving us to rot then?" He demanded. "Or be eaten by fae?"

"Do you think you deserve better? But no... as I've already told you, I don't kill people. But I don't let people who victimize others escape without punishment either. I won't come back this way, but I'll send the authorities to find you when I reach Uzun." I informed him. "In the meantime, I suggest that you start considering a career change. Before you're put on trial, get someone to send a message to the Abbey of Mela." I advised. "Ask for forgiveness and sanctuary."

"The Abbey won't take us in!" The knot-tier protested. "They won't believe we can be reformed!"

"They'll take you in. And if they don't believe you can be reformed, you'll just have to prove it to them." I replied. "There are things you have to give up to be a monk, but it's an honest life, and a good one. Better than starvation or living on this damned road."

"How do you know so much about monks, demon?" The knot-tier demanded.

"Until very recently, I was one." I informed him. "My name is Veritas Ilumio. Remember it. You're going to be hearing it a lot."

"I take it you'll be blazing a path of death and destruction?" The knot-tier glared.

"Actually, I'm saving Creation from bastards like you!" I replied with a smirk. "Well, have a nice night! And I do hope it rains!"

Whistling a little to myself, I walked away. I made it about two miles when I decided that it was time to attend to Godchaser. I gave her some Essence and did as much sewing as my tired fingers would tolerate before finding myself a little copse of green where I could spend the night. I considered saying a prayer to the local rain Gods, just to see if they would arrange a nice cold drizzle over the heads of the bandit monks I'd just humiliated.

From the top of the hill, I could see Uzun. It wasn't likely that I would make it to my destination before dark and I didn't want to play twenty questions with the porters who closed the gates after nightfall. Once the sun was down, the gates of the city would only be opened for honest and upstanding local residents with believable reasons for arriving home so late. After rescuing Dove, I'd felt considerably less confident about my own invincibility... and so I'd begun to do something that I hadn't done since before Dragonlord Chiron had arrived at the Abbey of Mela to find me.

I'd begun to pray.

When I'd still been a monk, it had been my habit to recite sutras in the early evening, but the words that I had formerly sought comfort in had begun to worry me. I wondered if there was some danger in praying to the Dragons as a demon and then decided to say a few words to the local Gods of each place where I camped instead.

My experience with Mochi had convinced me that the little Gods would not condemn me for what I was and would gladly aid me if I asked them to. Since leaving Windfall I had met two more rice paddy Gods, the God of Deer Berries, the God of Moss, and their mistress, the Goddess of The Silver River. All addressed me with the same sort of flowery antiquated language as they asked for small boons that I was only too happy to grant. With their aid, I had successfully evaded all of my pursuers, a pack of wolves and even a pair of goblins who were fighting over a sorry-looking duck. The little Gods had protected me from everything save for the powerful tree-uprooting Fae who'd tried to devour my mind and the four bandits who'd found me lying in a ditch afterwards, both things that I suspected were beyond their power.

Godchaser was not at all pleased with my new devotion, although she grudgingly admitted that the little Gods were proving to be useful. She referred to them often as "meddlers" and "upstarts" who ought to know better than to manipulate a Lord of Creation. If I wanted to pray, she informed me, it ought to be to a suitably powerful God, preferably the Unconquered Sun who had "Chosen" me.

Of course, because I had added the word "Chosen" to my list, Godchaser hesitated to say it. She annoyed me with her waffling until I demanded that she tell me everything that she was thinking, at which point she launched into a very long lecture concerning the duties of Solars. According to Godchaser, it was absolutely necessary for me to stop berating myself for what I might have done wrong and embrace the fact that I was not Anathema, but an Exalt of the highest caliber.

I didn't want to admit to Godchaser that I was beginning to believe everything she had said. I'd met more than a few despicable monsters in my travels so far and could not see myself turning into one. If anything, I'd been suffused with a kind of righteous fervor that told me I was meant to stand against evil, whether it reared its ugly head in the form of a Dragonblooded sorceress, a fae trickster, or a bandit monk.

I waited until Godchaser was asleep and then left her sitting on a rock where I could still see her out of the corner of my eye. I took off most of my layers of clothing and put all of my tools away, wanting nothing that might distract me too close at hand. Leaving even my shoes behind, I stood on the edge of the cliff and watched the sunset. After a few moments meditation, I felt ready to pray. The words which came to me were in Old Realm and I barely understood some of them... but they flowed out from me as if I had recited them daily for all of my life.

_ "Sol __Invictus, __powerful __and wise__, _

_bestower __of __great __gifts_ _who __cherishes __and __nurtures, _

_through __whom __we __live __and __draw __the __breath __of __being, _

_I __offer __and __accord __you __the __highest __thanks._

_Please __hear __and __aid __me, __and __help __me __out __of __my __misfortune._

_Grant __me __peace, __safety __and __good __health._

_Show __my __eyes __the __truth, __place __only __kind __words __upon __my __tongue, _

_G__uide __my __actions __to __the __betterment __of __all._

_Protect __me __as __I..."_

I hesitated. The words which came next stuck in my throat.

The sun rested on the horizon line, cut thorough its center by distant fields of rice. In that moment of rare and perfect symmetry, the sky was unusually spectacular, gold and ruddy orange surrounding the red half-circle of sun itself and a corona of blue and purple bleeding into the black of the night sky.

Such radiance was positively terrifying, but at the same time, I _recognized_ the presence I felt. I picked a small piece of copper wire out of my pocket and twisted it into a circle. The wire _needed_ my hands to give it shape and purpose. It became _something_ when I crafted it, something necessary and beautiful. If I could take a piece of broken wire and transform it into a work of art, why couldn't a great and powerful God do the same with a man?

"_Protect __me __as __I __work __in __your __name_." I finished.

Though I'd denied it at first because the truth was so overwhelming, I understood then that I had been raw metal myself, and Chosen from all of the useless little pieces of slag in the world. My weaknesses had been cut away. My strengths had been sharpened with terrifying precision. I hadn't been possessed by a demon! I'd been forged into a tool fit to be wielded by the Unconquered Sun!

The moment was exquisitely beautiful. I had to tell someone how I felt, and I knew exactly who would appreciate the confession that was bursting out of me.

"Godchaser!" I shouted, racing back to where I'd left my companion. "Godchaser, I've had an epiphany!"

She did not respond.

"Godchaser?" I whispered fearfully, carefully lifting her up. Her hearthstone, black and lifeless, fell into my hand.

I worked furiously all night. Although Godchaser had likened her hearthstone to my heart, I understood enough about how she actually worked to know that her death would not be permanent if I kept enough Essence flowing through her. Her hearthstone allowed her to regulate Essence like a living being, but it was the Essence itself that kept her alive, not the stone. Unfortunately, the more active she was, the more quickly she burned through her reserves. In the end, I decided to stabilize her in the only way I knew how. I made sure that she would stay "asleep" until her hearthstone was working again.

I wouldn't have her help or her companionship, but maybe that way she would survive the long journey to Nexus and my so-called manse, a place that I had never seen in any time that I could remember. The feeling that came over me when I finished doing what I could was something akin to sitting at the bedside of someone seriously ill. On one hand, I knew Godchaser needed to rest. But I also hoped that I would have the opportunity to speak with her again, at least one more time if I couldn't save her. I needed to tell her that she'd been _right _from the very beginning!

I said a dozen prayers to the local Gods and then several more to my new patron so that he would not be offended. Dwelling on the subject of death did bring an uncomfortable question to mind. Was there an afterlife for beings like Godchaser? Did constructs have souls?

When the sun rose, I went down to Uzun. I gave a filthy little boy a handful of the bandit's gold and instructed him to tell everyone that three bandit monks had tried to rob an Anathema who'd left them tied up in the forest not far away. Such a strange story immediately drew most of the local authorities out onto the road heading west and helped me slip through town undetected.

I found the first ship that was headed in the direction of the Imperial City and paid for passage with the remainder of the coins I'd taken from the bandits without bothering to haggle down the absurd price.

It departed at noon and that was all that mattered to me. I did not want to stay in one place any longer than I absolutely had to. I sat nervously in a corner of the deck, avoiding everyone's gaze until the ship was loaded and leaving port. It would be difficult to hide on such a crowded vessel, but it would only be a few days until we reached the Imperial City at which point I would be able to look for better, more private accommodations for my voyage to Nexus.

I'd have to be careful how I plied my trade, particularly since I was still being hunted... but a few well-placed inquiries would probably find me some of the jobs I was really looking for, the ones that were exceptionally difficult and high-paying.

On the evening of my first day aboard, I dozed off near the ship's galley and was woken abruptly several hours later by the shrieks of two mischievous children who'd spotted a rat. Their mother groaned and gathered them up, muttering an apology to everyone who'd been sleeping. I almost nodded off again, thinking it best to rest while I had the opportunity... but then someone sat down beside me.

The young woman was deeply tanned with beautiful, unusual cerulean blue eyes. She was dressed in simple, serviceable indigo linen, a dark leather vest, breeches and the kind of soft acrobat's shoes that Westerners often wore when they were hopping from ship to ship. Obviously an experienced traveler, she alo carried a very fine sword on her hip and a battered old case which I suspected contained an instrument. It was obvious that she had a weakness for gold jewelry, though everything she wore was cheap and not very well-crafted. There were a number of bracelets on her wrists and beads of varying sizes braided into her unruly mane of wine-colored hair.

"Hello." She said with a disarming smile. "I'm Ping." I did not respond, pretending I hadn't heard her.

"So... what's your name?" She pressed.

"Can't you see I'm busy?" I demanded, turning away from her and digging through my meager possessions for the little paper I had left. I should have bought more in Uzun, but it hadn't occurred to me that I was running out until I'd begun poking through the ream of plans in the bottom of my tool chest.

"Busy? You were _asleep_ a minute ago!" Ping informed me.

"Well, I'm busy now!" I replied. Taking out a drawing that I'd fumbled with before, I sharpened one of my pencils and began to work, hoping that Ping would get the message that I didn't want to make friends with anyone. Lovely as she was, I felt compelled to get her as far away from me as possible. Though I wasn't a monk any longer and not technically bound by any vow of celibacy, being anywhere near to me was bound to be dangerous and I could not justify putting someone so obviously friendly and well-meaning at risk.

Worse still, she was far too attractive for me to pretend that I thought nothing of her. I could only think of one reason a woman like her would be interested in someone like me. Like Sam, she had to be one of those meddling Sidereals.

Whatever _they _were.

"What is that you're working on?" Ping wondered, undeterred.

"A fountain." I replied truthfully. "I'm an engineer."

"Well, I'm a bard... so maybe I'm not an expert on these things, but that looks like an awfully complicated fountain." Ping replied.

"Engineers get paid according to how complicated things are. The more incomprehensible it seems, the higher the fee." I retorted.

Ping laughed. Her voice was musical and I did not doubt that she was a fine singer.

"It's not _incomprehensible_, it's just _not_ a fountain!" She informed me. "Okay, "engineer"... what's this part do?"

She pointed to my drawing and I smiled slightly despite myself. "I see you're clever. It's not _only_ a fountain. It's a machine for purifying water." I admitted.

"Ooh! _You're_ the clever one, designing something like that! How does it work?" Ping pressed. She was so earnest and charismatic that it was impossible to deny her anything. I sighed heavily and began to explain, thinking she would probably get bored and wander off sooner or later, but she hung on my every word and seemed to be absorbing all of it. At very least, she asked solid technical questions that made her sound more like an engineer herself than a silly bard.

After listening to the explanation of my water-purification machine, Ping decided that she wanted to see the rest of my drawings. I carefully hid the ones I'd done of Godchaser but shared a few of my more mundane ideas. Upon seeing each one, she lit up like a child opening birthday presents. When I 'd finished explaining everything I'd scribbled out, Ping decided that it was time for some shipboard entertainment. With a mischievous grin, she produced her instrument which turned out to be a lovely antique mandolin and began to play _The __Ballad __of __Windswept __Rhapsody_.

Windswept Rhapsody was a folk hero like The Wandering Monk, a fictional bard who traveled all over Creation outfoxing evildoers and playing pranks on people who were too full of themselves. Ping soon gathered an audience. The songs she played were mostly common tavern fare, but her skill as a musician was very impressive. When an Immaculate traveling with us asked if she knew _The Peach Tree, _Ping smiled slightly and told a version of the story I'd never heard before, one that was a good deal more exciting than the original. The monk pretended not to be impressed, and after he departed, Ping spun a scandalous, heretical yarn about an Anathema who'd saved a city from a flood. Then she picked up her mandolin again and played _The __Goblin's __Ball_.

All of the passengers danced to that tune, causing our ship to rock furiously despite the smoothness of the river. I was even persuaded to get up myself when another passenger took up the song on his flute. Obviously wanting to dance a bit herself, Ping stood over me and held out her hand, refusing to take "no" for an answer. In addition to being a first-rate bard, she was also a wonderful dancer.

The days that made up our voyage from Uzun to The Imperial City felt blissfully short with Ping on board and the Captain insisted upon refunding her the money she'd paid for passage. No one could imagine the trip without her, and hearing Ping's endless chatter kept me from dwelling on the fact that Godchaser appeared to be dead... despite the small amounts of stabilizing Essence that I secretly poured into her every night.

I missed her constant enthusiastic chirping and even her inappropriate comments and snickers I knew could get me into serious trouble. More worrisome was the black spreading corrosion, which I pushed away with small applications of Essence when I knew I was alone. Still I, began to fear that I was fighting a losing battle. If Godchaser wasn't already beyond the point of recovery, she was fading fast and there was nothing I could do about it.

It was cloudy when we finally reached The Imperial City, but that didn't seem to dampen Ping's spirits. As we pulled into port, everyone gathered their belongings and prepared to disembark, but Ping stopped the captain before he could lower the gangplank. It was very difficult to deny Ping anything, and since I had repaired his telescope, the captain was in a good mood. He bowed slightly to our charismatic bard and motioned for two of his sailors to push out a shipping crate for her to stand on.

"Before we all go our separate ways." Ping announced. "It has been my great pleasure to meet and entertain all of you these past five days. I've told you jokes and stories, I've sang songs for you... but there is one thing that I would like to leave you with. If you don't mind, I'd like to say a prayer."

No one objected, not even the Immaculate monk who was always muttering about something being not up to his impossibly high standards. As I'd come to expect from her, Ping began her prayer in fine dramatic fashion, first invoking the Goddess Mercury, patron of travelers, the Gods of the Sea and of Sailing, Ruvia, the God of Roads and all five Immaculate Dragons. She then added some of the Gods that other passengers requested and even said a few words to Luna, who was generally not mentioned in polite company, seen by many as too capricious to be dealt with. Breathlessly, she promised that she was nearly done and wanted only to say a little something for herself.

The Immaculate raised an eyebrow in her direction as Ping lapsed into Old Realm. Although he didn't seem to understand her words very well, I knew them _perfectly_. I felt my heart skip a beat and I reached out for Ping's hand. She blinked in surprise as I recited along with her the same prayer to the Unconquered Sun that had burned itself into my memory less than a week ago. When we finished, Ping wrapped her arms around me. She didn't say anything, but she didn't need to. In that moment we understood each other better than words could express.

The sun finally peeked through the clouds as if he had heard his name invoked and we all disembarked from our ship. Ping followed on my heels at a steady clip. Her legs were shorter than mine, but her curiosity was insatiable and there was no way she was going to let me go without knowing where I'd learned that ancient prayer. I was curious as to how she knew it myself, but being a bard and well-versed in folklore, I suspected she might have heard it anywhere. There were a fair number of people who considered the Unconquered Sun their patron and though they were all considered heretics by the Immaculate Order, they were not all Anathema.

"Recluse, where did you learn my prayer?" Ping demanded.

Of course... once again, I'd slipped up and used my nickname instead of a better alias. I'd discovered that I had terrible trouble answering to anything else, so I suspected it couldn't be helped. When I made it to Nexus, there would be no harm in adopting my actual name, if not my tainted surname. I was certain that there was more than one "Veritas" in the Scavenger Lands where Rivertongue was the most commonly spoken language.

"Where did _you _learn it?" I echoed, not turning to face her.

"I've _always_ known it!" She replied.

"Well, so have I." I paused, evaluating the busy streets before me and trying to make up my mind where I wanted to go. Though I desperately needed supplies and money, I was somewhat reluctant to leave area around the docks. It was more likely that I would be recognized in the nicer parts of the city, particularly not since Dragonlord Chiron, Ragara Sephora, the Immaculate Order or any one of my other pursuers might be lurking around my old haunts... thinking that I might try to make contact with someone wealthy and influential who still had a soft spot for me.

I considered going to see Sesus Nakira, but then decided against it. Although she had been my most outspoken defender at the time of my trial, she was also devoutly religious and would have to know what had possessed me to run from the Abbey of Mela. And because she had always been so kind to me, I did not have the heart to lie to her.

"Where are you headed?" Ping demanded.

"I'm going to Nexus." I replied, seeing no reason to lie to her.

"You're not going to stay around here for a few days?" Ping wondered. "But this is The Imperial City? Center of the world!"

"Hm. Well, I'm not exactly impressed by it." I admitted, noticing a tavern with a door that refused to stay closed in the wind. "Why are you following me?"

"Because I want to. Because I like you." She replied.

"Don't you have some business to attend to?" I pressed.

"Oh, I'm just here to make enough money for passage to Great Forks." She admitted. "Perhaps we'll travel together again?"

"I think we should probably part ways now." I paused, not wanting to admit how tempted I was by her offer. The prospect of a three month sea voyage was much less daunting if Ping would be along for the trip. Yet at the same time, I already had a weakness for her and couldn't imagine how much more difficult it would be to continue deceiving her if we spent much more time together. She wasn't just smart, sweet and endlessly entertaining. She was also a powerfully beautiful woman and more than once I had to bite my tongue and keep my hands to myself when she tousled my hair and kissed me playfully on the cheek.

"Why?" Ping demanded. "I thought you liked my company!"

"Ping, I like you _very _much. But I have my reasons." I shook my head heavily.

"You don't trust me?" She frowned.

"I don't trust _anyone_." I replied.

"And that's why it's so obvious that you're on the run." She sighed, her hands on her hips.

Her response floored me. I turned very slowly and stared at her. She folded her hands and glanced at me with an expression that spoke volumes. There was no use in denying it.

"I'm not going to ask you the reason you keep looking over your shoulder every time an Immaculate passes us by. I don't care what you did." Ping paused. "I just want to help you if you'll let me."

"Why?" I wondered.

"Because I feel like you need my help." She replied without hesitation. "I don't think you deserve whatever punishment it is that you're running from. There's no justice where Dragonbloods are involved. Not for us mortals anyway."

I sighed in defeat. As usual, Ping was right. And yet at the same time, I wondered if letting her "help" me would get me in as much trouble as Himitsu's "little job" had. Then again... I had no proof that she was a Sidereal. I'd simply gotten into the habit of suspecting anyone who seemed too interested in me.

"It'll be easier for us to find passage if we're together." Ping explained. "People tend to be more suspicious of folks who are traveling alone."

"I can understand that." I nodded.

"So I'll be your wife." Ping looped her arm around me.

"What? No, no!" I protested. "You're too _young_ to be my wife!" I argued, trying desperately to hide how red my face had gotten at that suggestion.

"I'm too _old_ to be your daughter. You can't be more than thirty-five!" She replied, very matter-of-factly. Truthfully, I was forty-three but I said nothing... pleased and a bit surprised to learn that I looked so much younger than I was, particularly from the perspective of a beautiful woman.

"Honestly, how young do you think I am?" Ping demanded.

"Twenty?" I suggested, hoping that she was at least of legal age.

Ping burst out laughing. "I don't know if I should be flattered or crying!"

"You're older than that?" I wondered uneasily. "Older than twenty-five?" I guessed.

"Oh, I'm well past thirty!" She rolled her eyes.

"How old _exactly_?" I asked.

"_O_ld enough to be your wife!" Ping replied with a mischievous wink. "And it's not polite to ask a lady her age!" She added, punching me in the shoulder.


	6. Chapter 6 - Windswept Rhapsody

**Chapter 6 – Windswept Rhapsody**

A week passed. Ping began entertaining at several of the local taverns and I followed after her, making little repairs wherever we stayed. Playing a married couple, we would always get one room and a bed to share. Though Ping didn't seem to mind living in such close quarters with a man she barely knew, I continued to sleep on the floor and made sure to avert my eyes while she was changing her clothes.

Working in tandem, we soon earned enough money to pay for our passage at least as far as Nexus. We decided to stay on the waterfront a few more days in order to buy some new clothes and supplies. While she was playing her mandolin one afternoon, I slipped away from Ping and purchased myself a new cloak which would better hide Godchaser who'd been spending most of her time rolled up inside of my traveling pack, still unresponsive. Though cream was not a good color for the open road, I knew that when Godchaser woke, she would appreciate her new covering and especially the very fine gold trim I'd purchased for it. It would make her look as I had seen her in my memories of long ago.

If Ping in all of her usual brilliance was supposed to be my wife, I knew that I needed to improve the quality of my own wardrobe so that I didn't look like her servant. I specifically avoided the tailors that I had favored when I still worked in the Imperial City but I did still know where to get a good suit of clothes and wasn't about to quibble over the price. As Ping had explained, looking dirty and destitute was "_the __very __best __way __to __convince __folks __you __can't __be __trusted"._

After trying on a dozen different things, I settled on a well-made white linen shirt, light-colored breeches, a chestnut-colored leather belt with fancy bronze scrollwork and solid pair of flat shoes which were better than boots for shipboard travel. I found a purple silk scarf for Ping as well, suspecting that she wouldn't mind adding another ostentatious splash of color to her usual attire. The tailor gave me an absurdly low price for everything I requested after I put "the best edge he had ever seen" on all of his shears.

Still, I was never precisely comfortable in the Imperial City. Godchaser's continued silence and my fear of being discovered left me convinced that I had to find passage off of the Blessed Isle as soon as possible. One night while she was working, Ping chanced upon a somewhat heretical rice merchant with a taste for her bawdiest songs. He gave us the promise of a tiny private cabin and the most reasonable price we might have expected for passage to Port Calin, which was only a week's travel from Nexus. And so we paid him, packed our bags and informed the innkeeper who had put us up that we would be leaving in the morning. I took special care to make sure that Godchaser was sewn into my new cream cloak where no one could see her. The trickiest part was tailoring a piece of linen to adequately conceal both her hearthstone and the orichalcum gorget which snapped around my neck.

On the morning of our planned departure, I woke up and found myself in a bed. That alone came as a bit of a shock, considering how many days I'd spent sleeping in the dirt or on hard floors. Then I remembered the argument I'd had with Ping the previous night. She'd insisted that if I wouldn't climb into bed with her, I should at least be willing to trade nights spent on the floor. She winked at me as I rolled over.

"Ready to go?" She prompted.

"Must I get out of this bed? Well, I suppose we do have a ship to catch." I sighed heavily and say up. That was when I saw that Ping had a open bottle of wine in her hand.

"Drink with me first?" Ping prompted.

"The sun's barely risen!" I argued.

"All the more reason to drink now. He can't see us yet!" Ping winked. Though we had made a promise not to pry at each other's secrets, Ping recognized my new devotion. True "believers", she explained, were few and far between. And because I was sure that the Unconquered Sun had led me to her, I trusted Ping, despite the fact that I didn't know her surname. In truth, I suspected that "Ping" was an alias, but if I pressed my companion for more information I suspected that she might start asking me some awfully uncomfortable questions.

"No, it's all yours." I sighed, pushing the bottle away. "I don't drink."

"You keep saying that. I don't believe it. You don't drink that waterfront piss they pass off as beer – that I believe! But _this _is a good vintage!" She informed me.

"Why are _you _drinking at the crack of dawn?" I wondered.

"Nerves." Ping admitted.

"You? Nerves?" I almost laughed out loud. From what I'd seen of her usual behavior, _nothing _made Ping nervous! She could dodge even the worst drunks and troublemakers on the waterfront with effortless grace.

"Yes, sometimes! Particularly when I'm about to board a ship full of strangers who are going to be my only company for three solid months!" She replied.

"You won't be surrounded completely by strangers. You'll have me." I smiled slightly.

"And that will make the time fly by!" She smirked, leaning forward to kiss me on the cheek. I saw what she was doing too late and we wound up knocking our heads together.

"Ow!" I grimaced. Ping once again offered me her wine.

I sighed heavily and scoffed at my own foolishness. Though I hadn't touched alcohol since becoming a monk, having a glass of wine wasn't the same as being a drunkard. I took a small sip. The wine was as good as Ping had professed and did calm me down somewhat. I hadn't realized how tense I was myself until I surveyed our packed bags and considered that I was about to put myself in a situation that I could not run away from. I had to be careful, and it was absolutely necessary that I keep some distance from Ping, even as I toyed with the idea of telling her everything.

Although Ping was a dyed-in-the-wool heretic, with a particular fondness for the Unconquered Sun, I still felt that telling her the truth would be dangerous. As much as I wished otherwise, the two of us could not continue traveling together without the burden of my secret between us.

"Can I have my wine back?" Ping wondered, gesturing to the wine that I was still nursing as I mused over what lay ahead of us.

"Don't drink it all!" I advised, and she chuckled.

"I couldn't if I tried! I have a whole case downstairs!" She informed me. Ten bottles for when we start to go mad and two for when we make it to Nexus!" Ping stretched languorously with all the grace of a cat and then spit wine all over me as she glanced out the window.

"Sun-in-Glory!" Ping swore. Her favorite curse was so blatantly heretical that it made me smile every time I heard it. She truly didn't care what anyone thought of her. Then she turned to me with a wild-eyed expression and I felt my heart skip a beat. "A dozen monks just got on our ship!"

I rushed to the window myself and cursed incoherently in Old Realm. Ping gave me a critical look. She'd guessed that I was on the run weeks ago, but my reaction at that moment betrayed everything I hadn't told her. "They're looking for you?" She demanded, her hands on her hips.

I took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Well, that's no good." Ping grimaced. "Most of our money's gone, and I doubt that stingy rice merchant will give us a refund if we change our plans. Though I suppose we_ could _stay here another week?" She suggested with a smirk.

That was when I noticed a large number of red-clad Imperial soldiers marching down the street. "No, I'd better get out of here _now_."

Ping stared in disbelief as the leader of the soldiers went to talk to the monks standing on the dock. "Recluse, what did you do?" She demanded.

"You promised you wouldn't ask me that!" I reminded her.

"But that's the Scarlet Legion!" Ping groaned and buried her head in her hands. "This humble heretic cannot take _that _kind of heat!" She informed me.

"I told you before, I'm in a lot of trouble. If any of those men find out you've been helping me... I don't know what they'll do to you. We'd best part ways now. " I replied. "You go out the back door first, and find yourself passage somewhere. If I have to, I can distract them for a little bit so that you can get away.

"No!" Ping refused, her hands on her hips. "I'm not leaving you behind!"

"Those men will be combing the port and since they've talked to our captain over there, they'll have good descriptions of both of us. We're not getting out of here together! Not on any reputable ship!" I argued.

Ping smiled slightly, and I could tell from the dangerous twinkle in her eyes that she'd just had an inspired idea. "What about a ship of ill-repute?" She pressed.

"What's that mean?" I wondered.

She put her arm over my shoulders and smirked. "Tell me, Recluse... how do you feel about becoming a _pirate_?"

Ping and I hadn't exactly planned our escape when we slipped out the back door of the inn. We left most of our hard-earned supplies and Ping's wine, figuring that we stood a better chance of eluding my pursuers if we were light on our feet. Of course, since we were headed straight for the very worst part of the city Ping had also wanted me to leave my somewhat ostentatious new cloak behind also.

I refused, but since our partnership was based on the understanding that neither of us would ask too many awkward questions Ping didn't ask me _why_. As I saw it, there was only one thing I wasn't willing to leave the Blessed Isle without, and that was Godchaser. Attached as I was to my tools, I decided to bring them along too... although I was beginning to think that I could craft myself a more efficient set.

Ping and I made it only a few streets down from our residence when we stumbled across our first Imperial patrol, a small group of annoyed-looking Scarlets questioning a man whose tavern Ping had played at several times. Seeing the Dragonbloods before they caught sight of us, Ping and I dodged into the nearest alley and hid behind a reeking pile of garbage. We watched the soldiers in silence, not daring to breathe.

"I've already told you!" Our former employer protested. "I don't know where they stay! Yes, they were working for me... but they've worked for practically everyone on the waterfront since they came to town! You can't miss those two! Wherever the girl's playing there's bound to be a crowd, and that man who follows her won't be more than ten feet away, up to his elbows fixing something. If you haven't seen em' yet, my bet is they got on a boat right under your enormous nose!"

"You fool!" The leader of the Scarlets slapped the man and he crumpled to the ground. "How dare you suggest such a thing? You don't even know what those fugitives have done! You'd better hope they haven't escaped!" He snorted and turned away on one heel. The leader of the men was clearly a Fire-Aspect and maybe a Cathak himself, possibly some relative of Dragonlord Chiron. Whatever House he belonged to, it was obvious that he was inexperienced and arrogant, an all too common combination amongst young Dynasts.

"Fanglord, we'll never find him knocking down doors! Half of these mortals are criminals and they've no respect at all for the law! They'll hide him right under our noses if we don't tell them that he's..." One of the soldiers protested.

"Shut up!" The Fanglord snarled. "You know our orders! If my uncle says that we call him a "fugitive"... _we __call __him __a __fugitive_! Is that understood? Search the inn!" He ordered.

"What was that all about?" Ping wondered as the Scarlets followed their leader's command and went inside the inn. Trying to look as casual as possible, the two of us waited until the soldiers all appeared to be gone and then crossed the street. I didn't answer Ping's question. I wanted to remind her that she had promised not to ask about my past, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we weren't out of danger yet.

"Heretic!" A voice demanded. "Stop where you are!"

I looked up. Standing only a few feet away from me were two Immaculate monks. I didn't recognize them, and the scripture the elder monk carried draped over his shoulders was tied with a dark blue ribbon. The official color of the Abbey of Mela was white.

"Uh oh." Ping blanched. Quicker on her feet than I was, she took off running and the monk went flying past me as if he hadn't seen me at all.

They were after _her_?

Not for the first time, I suspected there was a lot more to my companion than met the eye. I already knew from dancing with her that Ping was very fast and coordinated. She succeeded in knocking over half a dozen stalls as she dodged the monks all around the marketplace, moving like an acrobat with the streetwise sense of an accomplished thief.

"Damnit, Recluse... aren't you coming?" She demanded from a nearby rooftop.

That was when some of the Scarlets apparently decided that they were done trying to force answers out of the working poor who were largely immune to typical Realm intimidation anyway. Three Dragonbloods stepped out of the inn and all of them stared at me in disbelief. I did not have to ask myself if I had been recognized.

"I'm right behind you!" I shouted, bolting after Ping.

Ignoring the exclamations of shock from the gathering crowd, I leapt effortlessly onto the nearest rooftop. Ping had used a fruit stand as a step up herself, but there was no explaining what I had just done. It was an impossible feat without using Essence. Fortunately, Ping was busy tripping up a monk with a clothesline... which meant that she hadn't noticed me momentarily defying gravity.

The two of us jumped from one building to the next and even busted through the windows of a brothel, desperately trying to dodge the growing hordes of monks and soldiers who were following our flight on the streets below. Some of them pursued us across the rooftops, but even the elite Scarlets were slowed by their armor and not as adept at running across clay tiles as we were, particularly since most of them were wearing riding boots and Ping and I were both in cloth shoes.

The monks were another story. While they were mostly mortals and not Dragonbloods, they all trained in martial arts and were lighter on their feet. Two of them cut off Ping and she drew her sword. I noticed with some surprise that she struck the first only with the flat of her blade when she could have easily killed her opponent. When the second tried to take her down from behind, I caught his punch and locked up his arm so that I could deliver a swift arc kick to his gut and then sweep him onto his back.

Another monk soon took his place, an Air Aspect Dragonblood surrounded by an anima of cold that was painful by sheer proximity. He lashed out with a stunning combination of jumping spinning kicks that I would have applauded, had they not been aimed in my direction. He finally caught me with a very sharp back kick and the strength behind his blow forced me to catch my breath.

Fortunately, I'd seen enough of his moves to anticipate what we would do next, and so I pretended to throw a slow roundhouse at him. Before he could counter with a wheel kick to my head, I leapt into a wheel kick of my own, striking him squarely in the face. The Air Aspect slid off the roof into a display of pottery and did not get back up, loose tiles and dust falling all over him like spring hail.

"Wooo!" Ping exclaimed. "Nice, Recluse!"

"Snake style." I replied. "The meaner they are, the harder they fall." Another monk tried to strike me from behind and I caught him in the temple with a ridgehand strike. "Where are we going?" I demanded.

"Fisherman's Wharf." She replied, taking down her opponent with the flat of her blade. He was an especially nimble soldier who'd succeeded in following us for several blocks, probably an Earth Aspect and obviously talented since he'd made it into the Scarlet Legion, but Ping made him look absolutely inept. I was very curious to know why she carried a sword if she didn't intend to kill anyone with it and decided that my host of questions would have to wait until we escaped.

_ If __we __escaped._

Catching sight of something nearby, Ping suddenly grinned. "This way!" She shouted, sliding down a gutter into a heap of garbage. I followed her without hesitating, grimacing as I landed on my feet in a puddle. I'd soaked myself with something that smelled an awful lot like the contents of a chamber pot. Still, with two Scarlets, one on either side of us, and three monks on the roof... I couldn't afford to waste a moment.

"I've got the monks." I told Ping. The two of us stood back to back.

"They're after me!" She argued.

"I noticed that. You'll have a lot of explaining to do when we get out of here!" I informed her.

"Oh, I'm not explaining anything if _you're_ not explaining anything!" She retorted. "Those Scarlets are chasing _you!_" She reminded me.

That was when the agile Air Aspect monk with the deadly flying kicks reappeared. He nearly landed an axe kick on my shoulder that would have broken bone, had it not contacted with the blade of Ping's weapon instead. The monk cursed and hobbled away, clutching his foot which was bleeding profusely.

The first Scarlet thrust his sword at me and I dunked, sweeping his feet out from under him.

Clearly, our witty banter wasn't amusing our pursuers.

As I blocked yet another violent flurry of attacks from the Air Aspect, the Fanglord barreled into the alley, flames billowing all around him. He'd obviously seen the mess we'd made of his highly trained men and was extremely upset. Generally speaking, Fire Aspects tend to resemble their elemental heritage when it comes to virtues, relying more on sheer pigheadness than anything as pedestrian as compassion or temperance.

I was beginning to feel the strain of drawing on so much Essence myself and was certain that my Caste Mark was about to start flickering. That would be the end of any cooperation that Ping and I might expect from the waterfront locals. A slew of monks and soldiers chasing after a pair of wandering performers warranted their assistance, but a _demon_ was another matter entirely. I didn't even want to think about how Ping might react if my anima really flared and I knew that without her guarding my back I was as good as dead. I'd dropped my tools nearly a mile back when I'd used the box to knock the teeth out of a monk. Even if my life depended on it, I had nothing I could use as a weapon.

Or did I?

As the leader of the Scarlets lashed out at me with his red jade daiklave, I swept up my cloak and the blade struck Godchaser with a resounding clang.

He stared in disbelief at his chipped weapon and I whispered a quiet apology to Godchaser even though I knew that she was still unconscious and couldn't hear me. I was also annoyed that I would already have to repair my new cloak, but sewing up a piece of clothing _was _easier than sewing up skin.

Another Scarlet charged at me and I dunked under his blade. Ping leapt over my head like a gazelle, bringing her sword down on his helmet with a force that made his eyes roll back in his head as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. I took a glancing blow from a bamboo staff before I finished off the last of the monks who were chasing us with a hook kick.

As I caught my breath, a hand reached to grab my hood and I whirled around and raised my first, almost striking recklessly until I saw that it was Ping who had me. The Fanglord was on his knees, bleeding from a sword thrust that went directly _through_ the plates of his lamellar armor and Ping looked more frantic than I had ever seen her.

"This way!" She tugged on me. "Before more of them come running! _Now_!"

We darted into a steam-filled alley between two bathhouses and clung to the walls as we raced through the crowded, stinking, fish market. At the end of a long and rickety dock was the scariest-looking ship I had ever seen.

Really, "ship" wasn't even a good name for it. It was a raft or _maybe_ a boat if one were feeling very generous, the kind of craft used only for coastal fishing and trapping crabs. A large, surly-looking Westerner was loading barrels onto the deck under the steely gaze of a scarred Tya woman who smoked a twisted ivory pipe. She missed seeing Ping and myself because of her eye patch and watched the monks that followed a few minutes after us with disdain.

As soon as the Tya's attention was turned on our pursuers, Ping motioned for me to climb inside an empty barrel. Once I was safely sealed up, she hopped into a second barrel herself, popping out a large knothole with the pommel of her sword so that she could reach up with one arm and put her own lid back on. It was a stroke of genius, clearly a trick that she had used before.

We held our breath and watched the monks approach the Tya, who didn't even stand up to acknowledge them. "What do you want?" The Tya demanded in heavily-accented Low Realm.

"We're looking for a pair of heretics." The first monk replied without hesitation.

"Look somewhere else." The Tya snorted.

"Whose ship is this?" One of them demanded.

"Not yours." The Tya replied.

"Now listen, you!" The second monk protested.

"You listen!" The Tya snapped, grabbing him by the collar of his robe. "I don't know nothin' about any heretics but if you'd like some trouble..." She began.

"Easy, Tick!" A man's voice laughed. "You gonna break that monk, and then what you gonna do with him? The Captain don't want no more dead men floatin' in the harbor!"

I heard more laughter, and through a crack in the wood of my hiding place, I saw three more dirty Westerners. The big dock hand cracked his knuckles and grunted. The two monks both looked like mortals, but they seemed ready to hold their ground, at least until an old Water-Aspect Dragonblood arrived on the scene. He was dressed ostentatiously in blue and black silk with a good quantity of silver, gold and pearls sewn into his clothing, which made him stand out in stark contrast to his humble surroundings. Like most old Dragonbloods, he didn't look entirely human. His skin was almost coal black and gleamed in patches with faintly blue-tinged scales and his even his eyes were vaguely reptilian. Rings adorned every one of his clawlike fingers. A second Water-Aspect, a teenage girl who strongly resembled the old man, hopped down from the deck of the ugly little crab boat, evaluating the monks with obvious disdain.

The old Dragonblood looked even less impressed with them. I'd never seen Dragonbloods react with such hostility to Immaculate monks before... but then I remembered that Ping had definitely said something about _pirates_.

"Is there a problem?" The old Dragonblood demanded, frowning.

"We're looking for heretics." The first monk stammered, not sounding very certain of his mission.

The young Dragonblood snorted.

"No heretics on my boat. Just honest fishermen." The old Dragonblood replied. "Now why don't you two make a nuisance of yourselves somewhere else?" He dismissed them.

The monks left without a word of argument.

I bit my tongue as the big dock hand picked up the barrel I was hiding in and hit my head three or four times as he easily rolled it up onto the half-sunken crab boat. Once I was safely on the deck, I peered through a crack in the wood and saw Ping's barrel sitting beside mine. She poked her hand out through her knot hole and gestured to the dock hand who'd carried us both aboard. When he saw her waving from a distance, he crept closer and rubbed his eyes, clearly wondering what he was looking at. Ping let him get within about six inches of her and then her hand darted out again. She seized the Westerner by his braided beard and knocked his face into the side of her barrel with shocking strength.

"Go get Jing Wei." She hissed, venom in her tone. "Tell him he's got two more "honest fishermen" on his boat."

I did not ask how Ping had known that the "honest fisherman" whose boat we'd stowed aboard was actually a notorious smuggler and sometimes-pirate called Jing Wei who was hated by the Realm almost as much as any Anathema.

When the sailor brought his captain back for negotiations, the entirety of the business between Ping and the old Dragonblood was conducted in Wavetongue, which I couldn't understand. Money and something else changed hands and Ping definitely showed the young Dragonblood her blade, which the girl seemed to like very much.

The ship we had stowed away on was called _The __Ying __Long_ and that it was uncomfortably small by any standards, crewed by only four Westerners, the captain, and his two officers. The four ordinary sailors paid no attention to me because I did not speak any Wavetongue, but the bad-tempered Tya called "Tick" who served as quartermaster was fluent in High Realm and the young Dragonblood also knew my native Rivertongue. Matsu served as her father's second officer, and it was obvious that Jing Wei would do anything for his daughter.

I learned only after the sun had gone down that Ping had sold her sword to Matsu. To Jing Wei she had passed along all of our remaining money, an unopened bottle of wine that she was inexplicably carrying, and the promise that the two of us would help to crew The Ying Long until we reached our destination. I had never sailed before myself and although I felt confident that I could be useful as a carpenter, Ping had volunteered my services in a very different capacity.

"You said you could fix anything..." She began.

"I meant doors, boilers, pocket watches... not _food_!" I protested.

Ping only snickered and went off to attend to her duties as a deck hand, leaving me staring helplessly at a low ceiling full of pots and pans and a dozen unmarked barrels of provisions. She'd promised Jing Wei that I could _cook_.

Of course, raised in the house of a well-to-do merchant, I'd never cooked before in my life and didn't know how to make shipboard provisions even remotely palatable. Fortunately, Ping assured me, most sailors were accustomed to food that was blackened, over-salted, mushy or otherwise foul beyond all reason. I learned the kitchen tasks quickly enough and eventually discovered a small cache of spices stashed in the back of a cabinet. If I used them sparingly, there would be enough to make the cured meat and floury biscuits edible for the duration of our voyage, if not exactly gourmet fare.

A month passed. I became somewhat competent at my job, which also involved pulling teeth, giving stitches and fixing anything that broke, including the captain's sextant on more than one occasion. Jing Wei had a tendency to bash his delicate navigational tools when they failed to operate the way he wanted them to, a thing which always made me cringe.

Ping endeared herself to Jing Wei and everyone else in her usual fashion by telling stories and playing her mandolin. She obviously knew her way around a ship also, and the crew marveled at how quickly she could skitter up into the rigging and unfurl a sail. Largely because of Ping, we were both offered permanent positions as members of the crew before we were halfway to our destination.

I politely declined, though Ping promised Jing Wei that we would at least consider his generous offer – which involved her getting her sword and most of our money back. I tried to explain to Ping that I didn't want to be a pirate... but she only laughed and reminded me that I was already a fugitive. How much choice did I really have?

I decided that I would stand my ground on one point, however. I had not killed anyone yet and would not. Ping assured me with her irresistible smile that I wouldn't have to, even if we did become full-fledged criminals. She claimed that she had never killed anyone herself, but I remembered the expression on her face when she'd run that Dragonblood through. Although she was good at parrying and dodging, I did not doubt that she'd spilled a fair amount of blood in the past. It was obvious, however, that she preferred to avoid doing so if she could.

Though Jing Wei occasionally raided ships, he was also in favor of avoiding fights whenever possible. Before Ping and I had come aboard, the Ying Long had been heavily loaded with contraband and Jing Wei's goal was to make to Nexus without coming under the nose of anyone he couldn't outrun. The situation suited me just fine. I had no desire to hurt anyone if I could avoid it, and was secretly pleased to hear that there would be no 'pirating' whilst Ping and myself were part of the crew.

We made very good time, passing ships that had left the Imperial City days before our departure. More importantly, as we neared our destination I had noticed a startling change in Godchaser's status. Though she didn't wake, her hearthstone had begun to flicker with light again and I hoped desperately that meant that my meager efforts were doing some good.

I didn't dare do any serious work in the close quarters if the ship, but I still managed to privately feed Godchaser enough Essence every night to curb the strange black corrosion that she seemed so prone to. I missed her more seeing that faint spark of recovery in her hearthstone than I had when I was certain that I had lost her. As much as I still worried over Godchaser, I now had another woman in my life, one who was in many ways even more maddening and incomprehensible.

_ Ping._

In my efforts to keep our relationship as platonic as possible, I took my kitchen duties very seriously and found that scrubbing pots and pans afforded me far too much time to think about everything that had happened to me so far and wonder what I really intended to do with myself when we reached out destination. Was this what the rest of my life would be like, sailing on The Ying Long?

I'd felt very inspired before Godchaser's hearthstone had failed and had begun imagining a future where I could save damsels in distress and battle injustice. I'd almost forgotten that in the eyes of the world I was a loathsome demon. I wanted so many things, especially a chance to do some genuine good, something more important than serving up gruel for a crew of pirates who only tolerated my presence because they loved Ping.

Not that I blamed them for that.

As difficult as it had been for me to admit, I loved Ping myself and felt undeserving of her attention. I decided that I should make something for her so that when we finally did part ways, she would have something to remember our time together. In exchange for some minor tinkering above and beyond my expected berth, I'd acquired a few small bits of silver. I'd also won a gold ring gambling with Matsu and had set about making it into a pendant with a tiny piece of orichalcum that I'd grudgingly gleaned from Godchaser. It wasn't one of her essential parts and I suspected that if I ever succeeded in waking her, she would certainly approve of what I had done with it. After so many weeks of tedium, I needed to do something exceptional... and hearing Ping recite her favorite prayer each morning had given me the perfect idea.

With more than a little Essence to aid my efforts, I coaxed the orichalcum into a perfect circular disk and then painstakingly crafted rays of gold and bronze extending out from it in all directions. It was a design reminiscent of the First Age, that wouldn't have looked out-of-place on the crown of an ancient queen.

I finished my gift for Ping when we were very near to our final destination, perhaps only a few days away. I could see the coast on the far horizon and foolishly thought that we had already made it to freedom. It had taken me so long to complete Ping's necklace only because I'd never been a very good gambler and I'd had to win a few more tosses of the dice and a bet at cards in order to get the remainder of the metal that I needed. Since I had no chain and not enough material to make one, I'd taken a strip from my old destroyed cloak, braided it and bound it with four blue glass beads. The resulting piece was somehow "earthier" than the pendant alone, and less likely to draw critical stares.

When I finally mustered up the courage to give my gift to her, I found Ping sitting on the bow of the ship playing her mandolin, _The __Ballad __of __Windswept __Rhapsody _once again. The picture she painted was so perfect that I almost believed she was the legendary bard herself. I wasn't the only one who noticed the similarity. With how often Ping played her favorite tune, several other members of the crew had begun referring to her as _Little __Rhapsody_... or less elegantly, _Windswept __Ping_.

_ Oh, __I __was __born __a __sailor __on __a __ship __far __out __West,_ _No __place __to __lay __my __head __down, __every __day __in __a __new __town,_ _Blow __me __where __the __wind __goes, __I'll __play __for __you __as __it __sweeps __me, __Won't __you __spare __a __coin __for __this __humble __bard?__And __listen __to __my __melody?_

_ They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __for __I __have __no __home,_ _They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __and __far __and __wide __I __roam!_

_ Oh, __I __was __born __a__ shepherd __in __the __mountains __up __North__, _No __place __to __lay __my __head __down, __every __day __in __a __new __town,_ _Blow __me __where __the __wind __goes, __I'll __play __for __you __as __it __sweeps __me, ___Won't __you __close __your __eyes __and __drift __away __to __the __song __I __bring __with __me?_

__They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __for __I __have __no __home,_ _They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __and __far __and __wide __I __roam!___  
><em>

_ Oh, __I __was __born __a __bandit __on __the __plains __of __the __South,_ _No __place __to __lay __my __head __down, __every __day __in __a __new __town,_ _Blow __me __where __the __wind __goes, __I'll __play __for __you __as __it __sweeps __me, __For __I've __no __skill __for __work __at __all...__just __a __gift __for __rhapsody._

_ _They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __for __I __have __no __home,_ _They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __and __far __and __wide __I __roam!__

_ Oh, __I __was __born __a__ hunter __in __the __forests __out __East,_ __No __place __to __lay __my __head __down, __every __day __in __a __new __town,_ _Blow __me __where __the __wind __goes, __I'll __play __for __you __as __it __sweeps __me___, __Won't __you __spare __a __coin __for __this __humble __bard?__And __perhaps__ a pint or three__?_

__They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __for __I __have __no __home,_ _They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __and __far __and __wide __I __roam!__

_ Oh, __I __was __born __a __merchant __in __the __Scavenger __Lands, _No __place __to __lay __my __head __down, __every __day __in __a __new __town,_ _Blow __me __where __the __wind __goes, __I'll __play __for __you __as __it __sweeps __me___, __Have __you __ever __heard __a __song __so __sweet?__Do __you __think __I__ play __for __free?_

__They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __for __I __have __no __home,_ _They __call __me __Windswept __Rhapsody, __and __far __and __wide __I __roam!__

_ Oh, __I __was __born __a __wanderer and around the world I roam__,_ _No __place __to __lay __my __head __down, __every __day __in __a __new __town,_ _Blow __me __where __the __wind __goes, __I'll __play __for __you, __as __it __sweeps __me, __For __I __was __born to be__bard... c__alled __Windswept __Rhapsody._

"Bravo!" I clapped when she finished. "Wonderful as always."

"One would think you'd be tired of hearing that song." Ping sighed.

"You never get tired of playing it." I replied.

"It has sentimental value. It's the first song I ever..." She hesitated for a moment.

"Something wrong?" I wondered.

"Something is. I can't put my finger on it. Matsu is nervous. She said that she heard there might be Lintha around here." She admitted.

"Lintha? What would they be doing so far East?" I wondered uneasily.

Really, I didn't know much about Lintha except that they were ruthless pirates and demon-worshippers. Ping had made it very clear that by demon-worshippers, she did not mean "_honest __heretics __like__us_" who said prayers to little Gods or to the Five Maidens and the Unconquered Sun. She meant the kind of demon-worshippers who sacrificed children and summoned monsters from Malfeas in order to lay waste to cities.

"I don't know and I hope she's wrong. In any case, we're not liable to run into them until the sun goes down, and even then we won't see them coming. At present, all we can really do is sit here and enjoy the sunset. And it is beautiful, isn't it? I love the way it looks over the sea." Ping sighed, watching the distant horizon.

"You love everything." I smiled slightly.

"So what if I do?" She replied, moving closer to me. We sat together for a moment, not speaking. Ping laid her head on my shoulder and sighed heavily.

"Why are you going to Nexus anyway?" She wondered.

"It's where I was born." I replied.

"Oh, you keep saying that but I'm sure that's not the only reason!" She argued.

"Ping, I thought that we agreed that we were both allowed to have secrets!" I reminded her. "It's the very cornerstone that our partnership was built upon!"

"But I don't _like _keeping secrets from you any more than I like you always sleeping on the floor! It... just doesn't sit well with me. I want us to be _friends_." Ping admitted.

"We are friends!" I replied.

"_Real_ friends." She sighed heavily.

"Well then, why don't you just tell me whatever it is that you want to say?" I paused, my fingertips drifting to touch the amulet in my pocket. "You can trust me."

"No, I _can't_! Trust has to go both ways, Recluse, and y_ou_ don't trust anyone!" Ping protested. "You've never given me a straight answer to any question I've asked! It's been nearly three months and I still don't know anything about you!"

I sighed heavily, my hands on my hips. "And I don't believe for a second that someone as talented as you are, with such _expensive_ taste in _wine_... would go to all the way to Great Forks _instead_ of staying in the Imperial City where you could make three times as much money! _You're _the one that got us in with these pirates and _you _weren't just being altruistic when you suggested that the two of us could hide better _together_."

"Ah." Ping observed. She didn't say that I was wrong, but that would have been pointless. I already knew that I was right.

"If we're going to hang out all of our dirty laundry, then one of us is going to have to go first!" I sighed heavily. "And since you're the talkative one... how's this for a deal? You answer one question of mine and I'll answer one of yours. Who are you running from?"

Ping sighed in defeat. I could tell I'd taken the lead with an uncomfortable question, but I supposed that was only fair. There were very few things that she could ask me that I might easily answer.

"The Immaculate Order." Ping admitted. "Specifically, the Abbey of Daana'd. Those monks we saw in the Imperial City getting onto our ship were looking for me, I recognized one of them. He's followed me all the way from Coral."

"All the way from _Coral_? Why?" I wondered, shocked that any monk would pursue a heretic so far.

"Oh no you don't! I already answered your first question! Now it's _your _turn to answer one of mine! Why are you going to Nexus?" Ping laughed.

"All right. I'm going to Nexus because I'm trying to help a friend. She's probably dying and the only way I can help her is to find something hidden near there." I replied, somewhat relieved that she'd asked me a thing I found easy to answer honestly.

"Something hidden, eh?" Ping pressed, clearly intrigued.

"That's another question!" I taunted and Ping put her hands on her hips, giving me a very obstinate glare. "It's your turn again! What was it that you were saying about your favorite song? You stopped yourself before you finished."

Ping sighed. She seemed to hesitate for a moment and then took a deep breath. "It's the first song I ever wrote."

"Ridiculous! That song has been around for a hundred years! You say you're older than you look but you're not _that _old!" I protested. I thought for certain that she was lying to me, or that she was mad. "Are you?" I wondered uneasily. She only smiled slightly in a manner that made me more than a little nervous. I knew I'd asked a second question which she didn't have to answer yet, and so I held my tongue.

"What's so important about your cloak?" Ping asked.

"It has an artifact hidden inside of it." I confessed. "A powerful, ancient artifact that Dragonlord Chiron wants back. That's what the Scarlet Legion is looking for." I finished, giving away a second answer for free. Although the game had been my idea, I clearly wasn't very good at it, and I did not doubt that Ping would most certainly learn more about me than I learned about her.

"Ahah!" Ping laughed. "So you're a thief?"

"I'm _not_ a thief!" I protested. "The Dragonlord..." I started to argue that Godchaser had been mine all along... but then I decided that it was better to hold my tongue until Ping asked me a question I really couldn't dodge. "He gave it to me." I finished. "Although he probably expected that I would give it back."

Ping chuckled. I paused, thinking for a moment on my next question. Though there were lots of things that I could have asked her about, Ping's reaction to my inquiries about her age made me very suspicious. "How old are you?" I demanded, suspecting that she was as young as I'd suspected she was when we first met – probably only twenty-four or maybe even younger than that.

"I am one hundred and twenty-six." Ping replied without hesitation.

"A hundred and twenty-six!" I echoed in disbelief.

"I _said _I was old enough to be your wife." Ping smirked.

"Do you think this is a joke? If you're really that old, you're old enough to be my _grandmother_! You look like you're twenty!" I protested. "How is that even possible? You're not a Dragonblood, are you?" She didn't look like one, or act like one... but sometimes you couldn't tell.

"Am _I _a Dragonblood?" Ping glared at me, clearly offended that I would dare suggest such a thing.

"So you're _not_?" I observed, smiling slightly at her reaction. It still made me uncomfortable that she'd claimed to be so old, but I decided to let it go. I suspected she meant twenty-six and was only being smart with me.

"Alright, you!" Ping smiled slightly. "_Your _turn again. Where are you from?"

"I was born in Nexus as I've told you, but I was raised in the Imperial City. That's where I went to school and lived for most of my life." I paused. "What about you?"

"Well, I was born on a ship. My mother was a weather witch and never stayed in one place very long. Witches hop from ship-to-ship all over the West, at least in the places where women can sail. I didn't set foot on land myself until I was five years old. So, basically, I'm from _everywhere_. All over Creation!" Ping replied.

I eyed her suspiciously.

"Oh, don't give me that look! I swear it's the truth! My mother drank like you wouldn't believe! Most of the time, she couldn't even remember how many children she had!" Ping sighed heavily. "If I hadn't accidentally met one of my brothers floating in a mess of kelp off the coast of Skullstone, I would never have known that I had siblings at all... let alone _eleven _of them! I sometimes tell people that my father was a Sealord. I like to imagine that at least one of my parents had good teeth and a surname_._" She finished, wrinkling her nose slightly with obvious distaste

"I can't imagine growing up like that. My parents were very good to me. I was an only child and while they weren't especially wealthy, they sent me to an excellent school and found me a wonderful apprenticeship. I couldn't have asked for anything more." I paused.

"So what's your real name?" Ping asked.

I hesitated, and then decided that I would not get a better opportunity to tell Ping the truth. I had to be honest with her as I'd promised, and that meant confessing not only how I felt, but why I had tried so hard to push her away from me.

In a week we would land in Nexus, I would be on my way to my manse, and Ping to Great Forks. Quite possibly, we would never see each other again. If I truly wanted the two of us to stay together, I had to come clean _before _Ping could simply run away from me and never look back. Maybe in our last days at sea I could convince her that being Anathema didn't make me a monster.

"Veritas Ilumio." I replied.

Ping covered her mouth with a gasp. For a moment I thought that she knew my story from my name alone, but then she said something entirely unexpected. "_You're_ Veritas Ilumio? The jeweler? That big awful scandal?"

"You _know_ about _that_?" I blinked in disbelief. The last thing I'd expected to hear from Ping was something that hadn't been news in more than five years.

"I'm a bard. Good stories turn into songs, you know." She admitted. "If I remember right, that one was called _The __Tinker's __Trial_and you could hear it all over the place about four or five years ago. It was actually a really fun tune while it lasted. Very anti-Realm, very controversial. Got me thrown out of _lots _of bars."

"All right. So now you know my real name. Might I have the pleasure of yours?" I smiled slightly.

"You don't believe it's Ping?" She grinned.

"Maybe I would, if you were a boy or a _duck._" I replied.

"Fair enough. I suppose it's really not the best alias I've ever come up with." Ping laughed.

"That's not an answer to my question." I pointed out.

"My name is Windswept Rhapsody." Ping replied.

"_You're _Rhapsody? _The_ Windswept Rhapsody?" I demanded.

"You thought I was fictional?" She teased.

"First you're one hundred and twenty years old... and now you're a legend? What happened to the two of us being honest with each other? There's something you're not telling me!" I protested.

"Of course there is! Just as there's something _you're _not telling _me_!" Ping... or rather, Rhapsody replied. When I considered that name, I had to admit that it suited her better than "Ping" ever had. She was far too elegant to be called "Ping". "What is that in your pocket that you keep fiddling with?" She asked. "I noticed it weeks ago and it's been driving me mad!"

I sighed in defeat and produced the amulet for her inspection.

Rhapsody gasped. "Oh my goodness, it's _beautiful! _You made this?"

"For you." I smiled slightly.

"It must have taken you _forever_! Why would you..." The expression on her face changed. Rhapsody was obviously thinking something that she wouldn't say, and so I broke the silence between us.

"I wouldn't be here without your help. I wouldn't want to be here. As you said when we started working together... we make a good team. But it's more than that." I admitted. "This is very difficult for me to say. I've gone over it out several times in my head and even still, I can't find the words."

I didn't have a chance to finish what I'd begun and Rhapsody didn't respond to what I'd said. She looked distant for a moment and then terribly afraid. An unearthly howl sent all of the dozing pirates loafing around the deck suddenly scrambling to their posts. The ship bucked under our feet and Rhapsody caught hold of my arm just as I almost tumbled to the ground. She heaved me up with surprising strength and I noticed a flicker of something blue and gold hidden under the sleeve of her shirt.

Clinging to the ratlines as the ship continued to sway beneath our feet, I stared out over the horizon. There was a ship approaching us and it did not look like it came from the Realm. Worse still, there was a creature in the water very near to us. I'd seen sharks and porpoises, sea turtles and seals since leaving the Blessed Isle, but not even the breaching whales that Rhapsody and I had spotted one morning were anywhere near as large as what was approaching The Ying Long.

"_Lintha._" Jing Wei snarled, peering through his spyglass.

"Father?" Matsu whispered nervously. "They've released their demon."

No sooner had she spoken than the creature reared its ugly head, almost capsizing us with the wave of water that it sloughed off, like a snake shedding its skin. That came as a shock, mostly because The Ying Long wasn't as pathetic of a vessel as it appeared to be. All of the crab traps and old nets actually disguised a small Shogunate-Era warship that Jing Wei had stolen more than seventy years ago and usually it weathered even the worst of storms with ease.

But the demon that rose up out of the sea was even taller than the largest ship I had ever seen! When it emerged from the water it looked like an enormous, inflated hammerhead shark with octopus arms and beady eyes surrounded by weeping pustules. It evaluated us with a harlequin-like grin and then bared its uneven, yellow teeth.

I'd heard stories that the Lintha used such monsters to tow their ships but I had never imagined how horrible they actually were. The noxious cloud that surrounded it reminded me distinctly of the place where I'd found Dove, where the poor girl had been about to be sacrificed to some sort of Malfean fiend. Staring that monster down, I was more convinced than ever before that was no connection at all between what I was and creatures like the one before me.

The crew dove for cover as the demon howled and hacked up a plume of iridescent green fire, catching part of the ship's deck with its acidic breath and the mainsail with its teeth. Tick shot at it several times with her firewands, but the demon didn't seem to notice the volley of rounds. The surly old quartermaster fell like a rag doll when it lashed out at her and slid down the stairs into the galley. If she wasn't dead, she was badly injured.

Rhapsody instinctively reached for the empty loop on her belt, the place where she'd worn her sword before giving it to Matsu at the start of our voyage. Her eyes darted around the deck, searching for something she could turn into a weapon. As Matsu and Jing Wei together called up a massive rush of water to put out the fires that had started and the rest of the crew hurled everything they could at the demon... I realized that our survival lay in my hands.

I knew what I had to do. Not caring who would see me, I rolled up my sleeves. A dozen words in Old Realm flowed from my tongue and my hands moved quickly through familiar patterns. What I was doing was so natural to me that I could have done it in my sleep, but it was also taxing, particularly with the ship bucking and swaying, loose ropes whipping in my face and half of the deck still burning with green flames.

I could feel the Essence bleeding from my body as I spoke the final word. Golden fire poured from my fingertips, coiling around the demon and sharply constricting into an inescapable pattern of concentric circles. I felt some resistance from the demon, but not nearly enough to stand against my will. In a burst of fiery white, it disappeared as if it had never been... leaving behind only a faint lingering cloud of sulfurous smoke.

It took me a moment to understand what I'd just done. I stared at my own hands as the air cleared and The Ying Long steadied itself. I'd just banished a demon!

The realization that I had actually cast a second spell of Emerald Circle Sorcery without ever consciously applying myself to the discipline worried me. If I could do in a pinch what a Dynast could only do with years of constant practice._.._no wonder everyone was so deathly afraid of Solars!

While I was still marveling over the fact that my gut instinct had been to use _sorcery_, Matsu seized the back of my shirt and tried to force me to the ground. Not so easily subdued, I caught her in a tiger's mouth strike and reversed our positions. I knew from watching her tussle with the crew that she was an excellent wrestler... but she didn't even try to break free of my grasp. She only stared at my Caste Mark and her whole body went limp. I think that she expected that I was about to kill her. Tick, bleeding profusely from her gut charged up the stairs and leveled her firewands at my head.

"Don't move!" She ordered.

I immediately released Matsu and she leap to her feet, running to stand with her father.

"Do _not _attack me! I don't want to hurt any of you, but I _will _defend myself!" I warned.

"I knew there was something suspicious about you!" Jing Wei growled. "An Anathema right under my nose!"

"I'm not a demon!" I began to protest, and then sighed in defeat. The entire crew of The Ying Long had just seen me banish a giant sea-monster... and though I hadn't used enough Essence to really start burning, the moment I'd started my spell my nature had become obvious. My Caste Mark flickered and then went out as the last vestiges of my sorcery dissipated.

"I should throw you overboard!" Jing Wei said. "You've been a snake on this ship since we left The Blessed Isle! Maybe you're in league with the Lintha?"

"Don't be absurd!" I scolded him, standing up straighter. If my secret was revealed, there was _no __way _that I was going to meekly accept such a predicament. Even when they pretended not to be, people were afraid of Anathema and I could use that fear to save my own skin. "I just banished a demon for you! Do you think I can't summon it back?"

Truthfully, I couldn't... but after what the men had seen, they easily bought my poor bluff. Even Tick and Matsu looked wary, and Matsu was by far the smartest member of the crew. Jing Wei only narrowed his eyes.

"Listen to me! I banished that demon because I thought you were all about to die." I paused. "If you'll let me off your ship in Nexus like we agreed, you'll never see me again." I finished. "But if you try to throw me overboard or have me killed... none of us will make it to shore. Am I understood?"

I waited on the deck until the crew gave me the space that I wanted and the retreating Lintha vanished in the dark. Dead tired and not knowing what else to do, I went back down to the galley. One of the blessings of being the ship's cook, carpenter and surgeon was that I had my own private space not far from the kitchen. But I did not get as far as my bed. Rhapsody was waiting for me in front of my door.

Without a word, she leapt into my arms and kissed me.

"Rhapsody?" I blinked in surprise.

"You called me Rhapsody_!_" She observed slyly. "Does that mean you believe me now?"

"What are you doing in here? Didn't you see what happened?" I protested.

"Of course I saw! I don't think anyone for _miles _could have missed it! It was _spectacular_!" She exclaimed. "You have such a _flare _for sorcery! I can't tell you how incredibly _jealous _I am!"

"You're jealous of me? But I'm _Anathema_!" I protested.

"Don't use that awful word!" Rhapsody scolded me. "I _hate _that word! It makes us sound like we don't belong in the world, like everything we are is _wrong_! And I will not believe that, not for one instant!"

"Hold on a minute. _We_?" I blinked in disbelief.

"Oh, Veritas! How is it that you can be so _brilliant_ and _so __stupid _at the same time!" Rhapsody sighed. Her eyes met my own and suddenly it was very bright in that small room. The mark on her brow was perfectly round and blazed almost too fiercely to look at, but my eyes had become accustomed to the sun's light. I couldn't even remember what the Immaculate Order would call one of her kind. It seemed irrelevant and I knew it was something ugly and cruel that wouldn't suit Rhapsody at all.

She was Zenith Caste, a queen in the guise of a traveling bard, a priestess and prophet of The Unconquered Sun.

I said nothing. No words would come to me. I'd been so worried that I was alone in the world, the one Anathema who _wasn't_ a mad monster. I'd feared that Rhapsody would fear me or loathe me when she discovered the truth, a crushing thought especially after we had just decided to be honest with one another. I had suspected that there was more to her than met the eye, but to know that we were the same was beyond anything I could have wished for.

She took my hand. I laughed despite myself. "All of this time... you and I have been dancing around the _same _secret? It's a bit unbelievable."

"_You_are unbelievable! And that word really means something, coming from a _fictional _character such as myself!" Rhapsody smiled. "I've suspected all along that there was something about you, and when you told me your real name, that's when I knew it. If even _half_ of what I've heard so far is true, your legend will be catching up with mine soon enough!"

"I'm not sure I understand." I admitted.

"Well, I seem to recall a song about a rescue in Chio that involved a Solar blazing across the sky like a falling star? And a new story I heard in Uzun about a dozen bandit monks tied to trees with their own swords bent round their wrists?"

"There were only four monks. And I only tied up one with his sword!" I corrected.

"Bardic license. In a hundred years, there will be fifty monks!" Rhapsody warned.

"You approve?" I observed.

"Oh, yes! _Absolutely!_ Too many of our kind are running around just trying to save their own skins or build up some little principality a million miles from anything. They don't comprehend why they were Chosen in the first place! Creation needs us to live resolutely. Risk _everything_. Be _heroes_."

I could not stop smiling. My mind was whirling with possibilities!

"What are you thinking about?" Rhapsody pressed.

"Everything!" I replied. "I've wanted to tell you since the beginning... I felt so sure that you would understand! Gods, I don't know why I hesitated for so long! It must have been because everyone loves you."

"Everyone doesn't love _me!_ They love Ping, who's the real fictional character. They don't even believe I exist_!_ If Jing Wei saw me right now, he'd be threatening to throw me overboard along with you!" She sighed heavily. "It's very hard to convince people that everything they've ever believed isn't true. And it doesn't help that there_ are _some Solars out there who give the rest of us a bad name. It's the price we pay for doing the God's good work."

"_Entirely _worth it." I replied.

"You know what?" Rhapsody grinned. "No more secrets! We've got two more weeks on this boat and we might as well make the most of them! You're already revealed..." She unbuttoned her sleeves and rolled them up to the elbow, revealing a pair of finely crafted orichalcum bracers, each with a sky blue hearthstone. "And now so am I!" She made a familiar gesture and whispered a short incantation that I was certain I knew. In a sudden blaze of golden Essence, her sword appeared in her hand. "Now if those Lintha come back, they are _really _going to get it!"

"Isn't that the sword you sold to Matsu?" I blinked in surprise.

"Veritas, you've _no __idea_ how many times I've sold this sword." She informed me with a mischievous smirk. I stared at her exquisite bracers. I couldn't help myself.

"Might I?" I began.

"Oh no! No _tinkering! _Not yet, anyway... although I _would_ like to see what's inside your cloak!" Rhapsody scolded me. "This is a_n _important conversation we are having right now! You can fuss with my Discreet Essence Armor later if you want."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pendant I made for her. "Help me tie this on, will you? I want to wear it."

"I'm glad you like it." I admitted.

"How could I not?" She laughed. "It's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen!" She held the amulet "You really are too damned clever... and such a gentleman to boot. If you were just a little more assertive, you'd have women hanging all over you!" She proclaimed, clinging to me with melodramatic flair. The ship gave a lurch and I fell to the floor. I would have jumped to my feet, but Rhapsody had landed on top of me and seemed content to stay exactly where she was, her fingers idly tracing a line from my chin down my chest.

"You're _deadly _with your flattery! One would suspect that you get anything you want!" I reprimanded her and she laughed.

"And if I do?" She taunted, poking my nose.

"Well then, I hope that you what you _want _to move this conversation to my room. Because right now I think I am lying on a spoon!" I replied, coughing slightly.

"Oh no, is this your final scene?" Rhapsody. "We've only just found each other and now we must be parted by death?"

"I said I fell on a spoon. What makes you think that constitutes a fatal injury?" I sighed.

"Bardic license?" She suggested.

"Oh, I love you, you lunatic!" I laughed.

"I think I may love you too." Rhapsody replied slyly.

Strange as it might sound, being revealed as Anathema actually made the last weeks of my journey much more pleasant, and not just because Rhapsody and I were as close as I had hoped we could be.

The closer we came to Nexus, the more steadily Godchaser's dying hearthstone began to glow. Since it no longer mattered who saw me for what I was, I burned more Essence than I had dared to in months, ignoring the reactions of Jing Wei and his crew when I stepped out of my little kitchen with my Caste Mark still burning.

There was something oddly refreshing about working in the open, about everyone knowing what we were and having to witness the kind of good that we could do. Even the notoriously unpleasant Tick admitted that we were useful when Rhapsody healed her wounds and I restored some of the damage the Lintha demon had done to our ship simply by laying my hands wherever they were needed.

When Godchaser woke for the first time in months, I almost couldn't believe that everything could work out so wonderfully. She blinked at me a few times, obviously groggy. I hoped that she hadn't suffered any permanent damage. "Maker, you are glowing. Are we in trouble?" Godchaser wondered.

"I know, and _no _we're not." I smiled slightly.

"Where are we?" She surveyed my little cabin in confusion.

"On a pirate ship." I told her.

"Ah. Why are we on a pirate ship?" Godchaser asked.

"Because I'm the pirate's cook." I replied.

"Hunh. I was under the impression that you were a _bad _cook." Godchaser admitted.

"Well, pirates are bad people. They're used to bad cooking!" I laughed.

"How long have I been asleep?" She wondered.

"Almost three months." I replied. "I was beginning to worry that you'd never wake up. But we're getting very close to Nexus and that seems to be helping your hearthstone."

"We're home!" Godchaser exclaimed. She wobbled for a moment, as if she wanted to leap into the air.

"Oh dear. Maker, I don't feel so good." She admitted uneasily.

"Don't try to hover! You should be very careful with the Essence I've given you." I informed her. "You're not in working order yet!"

"But you're going to fix me?" She asked hopefully.

"Of course." I promised.

"I think I need to go back to sleep now." Godchaser admitted.

"Can you hold on just a bit longer?" I asked. "There's someone I want you to meet."

I could scarcely contain myself as I burst out of the galley. "She's awake!" I exclaimed, not bothering to say who. Rhapsody's eyes lit up and she immediately swung down from her usual place up in the rigging.

Rhapsody was well aware of the glances that were cast in her direction. Though she never went so far as to purposefully show her Caste Mark to the crew, the orichalcum bracers she wore and her uncanny ability to take her sword back from whoever happened to be holding it had made it obvious that I was not the only "Anathema" on board. Furthermore, Jing Wei was far too sharp to miss Rhapsody whispering in my ear and kissing me when it looked like no one was watching.

"Damned brilliant sailor she is. I'd love to keep her. A pity she's a demon." Jing Wei observed, watching Rhapsody slide down the ratlines as gracefully as if she were skating on ice.

"She's _not _a demon." I informed him for the hundredth time.

Jing Wei laughed. "A woman like that? I was sure one of you was a demon when you climbed out of those damned salt barrels, and to be honest, I originally thought it was _her!_ The beautiful ones are always demons." He remarked, smiling slightly. "The more irresistible a woman is, the more likely it is that she has snakes for fingers or a scorpion tail."

"Well, I haven't seen either of those things!" I replied.

"You've seen enough to be sure?" Jing Wei observed.

I didn't say yes or no, but the old pirate still smiled slightly. "Lucky dog. Oh, if only I was fifty years younger I'd have you thrown overboard and take that woman of yours for myself. That is... if I didn't think she might steal my soul."

I had learned by then that Jing Wei didn't mean most of what he said. While he was not entirely comfortable having two Anathema on his ship, he was a man who kept his promises and he clearly wasn't much of a believer in Immaculate philosophy.

That was when Rhapsody reached the two of us.

"Are you two _talking_?" She blinked in surprise.

"Of course not. I don't talk to Anathema!" Jing Wei replied, turning swiftly to walk away from us... although he was definitely grinning as he did so. If Rhapsody thought there was anything odd about his behavior, she didn't comment on it.

"Your construct? She's awake?" She asked me, and I nodded.

"Not for too long, but I want you to meet her."

Rhapsody followed me back through the galley. I slowly opened the door to my little room and peered inside. "Godchaser?" I called out. "Are you still with me?"

"Ugh, Maker!" She whined. "I'm _so _exhausted!"

"It'll be best if you go back to sleep soon. But I have someone I want you to meet first. I promise it'll be quick." I replied, ushering Rhapsody into the room. "Rhapsody, this is Godchaser. Godchaser... Windswept Rhapsody."

"Oh." Godchaser remarked dryly. "I see what this is about. I've been replaced."

"You haven't been replaced, you arrogant machine!" I laughed despite myself. "Rhapsody is a _person,_not a construct!" Of course, as I said that, I remembered that Godchaser did not see our relationship the same way that I did. Put simply, she didn't think that _she_ was a construct either.

"Anything she can do, I can do better!" Godchaser snorted. "What is it with you and collecting dirty little people? You never used to have this problem!"

"Dirty!" Rhapsody gasped.

"I don't _collect _people!" I protested... and then turned to Rhapsody whose expression was still more of a smile than a scowl. I had warned her that Godchaser could be abrasive, but it was obvious that she was impressed by how quick-witted she was and how very human she sounded, especially when she was being rude.

"She's not usually this unpleasant." I explained."She needs more sleep."

"I wouldn't need so much sleep if you would fix me, Maker!" Godchaser argued. "And I'm not being rude, I'm just stating a fact! Maker, you are _dirty_ and so is _this __girl __of __yours!_This whole room is dirty! I even have black stuff on me! And whatever it is, it's _gross_!"

"I really can't believe I'm hearing this!" Rhapsody laughed.

"I told you she was sophisticated." I replied.

"Stop talking about me like I'm not even here!" Godchaser interrupted us.

"My apologies." Rhapsody replied. "_You_ are _brilliant_!" She informed Godchaser. "As are _you_!" She added, kissing me.

"Of course I am." Godchaser smirked. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, evaluating me with a confused expression on her face, her gaze darting back and forth between Rhapsody and myself. "Maker." Godchaser paused. "There is a word... _words... word._There is a word on your list that I can't say, but I think you know what it is and I am wondering about it."

"Spit it out, Godchaser." I ordered.

"Your Caste Mark." She informed me. "Why is this girl of yours kissing you and not acting like the bandits did, all running and screaming? Did you use a Charm on her or take out part of her brain?"

"Godchaser!" I scolded.

"Maker! It's an honest question!" She protested.

"How's this for an honest answer?" Rhapsody replied, illuminating her own Caste Mark.

Godchaser's demeanor immediately changed.

"Oh! Oh, my goodness! You're... you're _you _and I didn't even know it! I'm sorry for everything I said before... it's just that I can't think very well right now." She rambled, not making any sense at all. "Oh, Maker! Why didn't you tell me that you met another Solar?" Godchaser exclaimed. "Ak, the list! Stupid list! Sorry!"

"What's this _list _she's going on about?" Rhapsody wondered.

"I gave her a whole bunch of words that she's not supposed to say." I explained.

"And _Solar_ is one of those words?" Rhapsody put her hands on her hips.

"Well, obviously! You should hear how she goes on and on sometimes! It's like being lectured by a... _priest._" I fell silent. With her Caste Mark still burning, Rhapsody was staring at me very gravely with her arms folded across her chest. Godchaser hovered over her shoulder and glared at me too.

"No, I have _nothing _against priests!" I held my hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I just want to keep myself from getting _killed_ if someone heard her rambling!"

"You should hear some of the things he says!" Godchaser informed Rhapsody. "He can be _so_ horrible! He says that A-word! "

"I've been _trying _to get off of the Blessed Isle! And as I'm sure you know, that's extremely difficult for one of us!" I protested. I'd been so excited to introduce Rhapsody to Godchaser that I hadn't even stopped to consider what might happen if the two of them actually hit it off. I'd created a monster!

"What else did he tell you not to say?" Rhapsody pressed, ignoring me.

"Caste Mark. It's two words, but I'm supposed to treat it like one. Solar, Exalted, Chosen, Essence, Copper Spider, Twilight, _Charm_, Sorcerer, _Sorcery_, Unconquered Sun... Oh there's lots more! He keeps adding words. Every time we get in trouble._"_Godchaser paused, observing the sour expression on my face. Rhapsody didn't look very happy about what she was hearing either, but I gathered that it was because she sympathized with Godchaser rather than me. "He didn't even want me to call him "Maker". He said that he didn't make me, that I came from Malfeas! And he threatens to take me apart! And I'm not supposed to laugh! Never!"

"You were trying to _hide _just like all of the others! What happened to living resolutely?" Rhapsody turned to me with her hands on her hips. "What happened to "_It's __entirely __worth __it_"? Did you mean anything you said?"

"Yes, _everything_! Rhapsody, Godchaser is really exaggerating and she has been unconscious for _months_! She doesn't know that I..." I fell silent, not sure of how to say what I meant.

Godchaser blinked in surprise. "I've missed something?"

"You've missed more than I can tell you about now. Listening to me explain will just exhaust the Essence I've given you." I sighed in defeat. "But we're going to need to have a long talk when you're well again."

"I am tired." Godchaser admitted, wavering a little. "Take good care of my Maker." She turned to Rhapsody. "He needs someone to take care of him."

"Oh, I will!" Rhapsody promised. She rested her chin on my shoulder and jabbed me hard in the ribs.

"I can go back to sleep now?" Godchaser asked.

"Yes." I told her.

Hearing a shout from up on deck, Rhapsody suddenly jumped to her feet. "Uhoh, I'll be back!" She informed me. "And don't think you can avoid explaining yourself! We're still trapped on this ship for three more days!" She said before darting out the door. I turned to Godchaser who was slowly settling back down into inactivity.

"I _like_ Merela." Godchaser murmured.

"Who?" I asked.

"Mm... _Rhapsody_. _Her_. I like her." Godchaser replied.

"That's good. I like her too." I smiled slightly. "Hang in there, will you? We're almost home."

"_Home_." She echoed with a sigh of contentment. It was the last thing she said.

I wished I'd had the chance to tell Godchaser about my epiphany before she returned to sleep, but there was too much I wanted to say. The whole story would have to wait. I watched her faintly flickering hearthstone. Port Calin was already within sight. After Jing Wei unloaded some of his cargo, we'd be on our way upriver. I was only a few days away from my final destination. I still didn't know what I would find in Nexus, but I had a great deal of hope... and I knew that had to count for something.

When we finally arrived in Nexus it was pouring down rain. Rhapsody found us accommodations at a seedy inn just outside of Harlotry, which was the "entertainment" district of the city. We spent two days there. Rhapsody played nightly for the patrons of The An-Tang Princess and I fixed a few small things, both of us intent on hiding from the ferocious storm outside which had filled all the city's streets with water.

The sun finally peeked out around midday on our third day in Nexus. Rhapsody and I went on a walk down to the docks, taking in the sight of all the ships that were coming in. I found it somewhat peculiar that she'd insisted we check out of our place of residence and take all of our belongings... but as we came uncomfortably close to a ship called "The Ocean Pearl", I realized that was because she was leaving me.

"You're leaving?" I blinked in surprise, not sure when she'd managed to slip away and book passage. Why hadn't she said anything?

"On to Great Forks!" She nodded. "That was always my destination." She reminded me.

"But so soon?" I protested. "I thought... well, I was hoping we might find my manse first. It isn't far from here."

Rhapsody sighed. "I wish I didn't have to go so quickly, but I last night I heard that my Clever Devil has had a nasty run-in with someone we both _really_dislike." Rhapsody explained. I did not doubt that the situation was far more complicated than she made it sound. In any case, the name she'd spoken sounded strangely familiar to me. I suspected she'd mentioned it before.

"Clever Devil?" I wondered.

"My Mate." Rhapsody replied.

"Your what?" I blinked in disbelief. "You're married?"

"No! It's not like that! Devil is my Lunar Mate." Rhapsody clarified, though those words meant nothing to me. I knew that Lunars were a kind of Anathema, like Solars... but it had never occurred to me that they might be similarly misrepresented by the Realm and the Immaculate Order. "Every Solar in Creation was made with a Lunar match." Rhapsody explained. "The Gods forged us in pairs. Think of it like yin and yang. Your Lunar is your equal and your opposite... he or she would have been your closest advisor in ancient times. Some Solars married their Lunars, but not all of them. Devil and I are like sisters. I've known her since I Exalted. She's saved my life more than once." She explained. "I have to look out for her because she's the only family I have. Oh, I'm sure all of my brothers and sisters have great-grandchildren by now, but they probably think I'm mythical. Like you did when we met." She sighed heavily.

I nodded. As much as it pained me to see Rhapsody go so soon, I understood how difficult it was to be what we were. I'd run all the way to Nexus for Godchaser's sake. How could I hold it against Rhapsody for traveling a few hundred miles more to help someone she'd known for a century?

"Once Clever Devil is safe and the bitch who's after her is up for audit, I'll be back." Rhapsody promised. "And when you meet my good twin, I _promise _you'll understand why I had to go help her! If you stop out for a drink occasionally, listen for new Rhapsody songs. That's how I send messages to my people so they know what I'm up to." She explained.

"But when you come back, will you stay?" I pressed.

"Of course! Nexus is fabulous! This town throws the best Calibration party in all Creation and that's only a few months away! I _never_ miss it!" Rhapsody replied.

"I meant... will you stay with me?" I sighed heavily.

"Oh, Sun-in-Glory! That look on your face is too pathetic for words!" She took my hands in hers. "Veritas, I'm a restless soul. I was born for the long road and I've got many more miles to go before I can settle down. But I will _always_ come back. I may be blown by the wind, but I also wear my heart on my sleeve and if I make you a promise, I mean it. And if I say that I love you, it's because I do."

Though clearly heartfelt, Rhapsody's confession didn't make me feel much better. I was still dwelling on the fact that she was leaving.

"Last call for Great Forks!" A sailor shouted.

Rhapsody kissed me and slowly drew away, waving to the sailor. A well-dressed man who looked like the captain of the ship bowed dramatically as Rhapsody came aboard and I smiled despite myself. Did he know who had just come aboard his ship? Could the captain see her as I did, not only as a traveling bard but as the herald of transformation that she truly was?

Knowing Rhapsody had changed me as it changed everyone who met her... for the better. At very least, I did plan on keeping an ear out for new songs. Belatedly, I wondered she'd meant by "audit". It sounded like a strange kind of bureaucratic punishment. It also made me think of Sidereals. I would have asked Godchaser about it, but I didn't want to wake her.


	7. Chapter 7 - The Fountain

**Chapter 7 - The Fountain**

After Rhapsody's ship departed, I decided to ask for directions to Glassmaker's Row, the working-class neighborhood in which I'd been born. Though I still wasn't entirely satisfied with Rhapsody's reasons for leaving me, I knew there was no point in chasing after her. As well-traveled as she was, she could easily evade me if she chose to.

I had to trust that Rhapsody would come back as she'd promised, and until she did... it was high time that I focused on some of the things that I needed to accomplish myself. Godchaser was still counting on me.

When I finally did reach Glassmaker's Row, nothing at all looked familiar. The buildings were of the typical Nexus style, growing larger with each upper floor until the rooftops touched, turning the streets below into a dark tunnel. Landlords were charged taxes according to the size of their property, but only the ground floors were ever measured, giving the enterprising all of the reason they needed to build precarious-looking funnel-shaped towers five or six stories high. Everything was stained with soot.

The smell of sand, molten glass and iron ore smelting wafting down from the Nighthammer District turned the air into a nearly unbreathable muck, and the water of the Gray River that threatened to pour over its swollen banks glistened like mercury. All around I heard hacking and coughing, and as I scanned the crowd for familiar faces, I noticed that a great many people had eyes that were red and runny or skin that looked jaundiced.

Clearly, some sort of illness was afoot and that didn't surprise me in the least, not when the water looked so awful. I had almost decided to head back to The An-Tang Princess when I reached an open piazza lined with glass shops. In the center of the piazza was an enormous marble fountain.

I stared with my jaw dropped in disbelief. I knew that fountain, and not from any childhood memory! It was my water-purification machine!

The feeling that washed over me as I came forward and touched that device was impossible to describe. As Godchaser had so often professed, I finally felt as though I'd come _home_, but not to the place of my childhood. I was following the path that my past self had blazed, and I had stumbled upon the first marker that I remembered. For being more than fifteen hundred years old, the fountain had fared remarkably well, but most of its metal parts had been stolen and the masonry had been eroded by centuries of acidic rain.

"Ahem?"

I turned slowly. Behind me stood an old man dressed in green with no hair at all on his head and a single enormous white eyebrow. He had very blue eyes and wore a little pair of glass spectacles as well as smile that was notably full of good teeth. The top of his head barely reached my chin. As suddenly as he'd appeared, I immediately suspected that he might be a God... or a Sidereal.

"It used to be fountain long ago." The man explained, gesturing to my machine. "It was the only thing that saved this city during the time of the Great Contagion. People would come for hundreds of miles. Many died anyway, of course... but some were actually saved. Looters have torn it apart more times than I can count... not that they ever found anything. If the stories can be believed, it hasn't worked in more than four centuries." The old man paused. "I'm Doctor Fabian Basha. You're not from around here, are you?"

"I was born in Nexus, but I haven't seen this city in many years." I admitted. "My name is Veritas. And I must admit, this fountain of yours has me very interested. Do you think it could be repaired?"

"I can't think of anyone capable of such a feat. But if someone were to do it, having clean water would certainly help to halt the spread of the plague. It's come again. Every seven years it hits this city very hard, particularly the poorer neighborhoods. I do everything I can, but I'm no Dragonblood. Just an honest doctor with a few little Charms at my disposal." He explained.

"Why not ask for help then?" I asked, though I could already guess his answer.

"The Immaculate Order considers Glassmaker's Row to be a nest of thieves and heretics... so you won't see their sort around here. There's also no money to be had." Doctor Basha admitted.

"Well, what if I told you that I could fix this fountain for you?" I asked.

"I'd say you were mad. And then I'd ask you what you wanted in exchange." Doctor Basha replied.

"Nothing. No payment anyway. But I'd need a place to work. A... private place." I added on afterthought. "Could you arrange that for me?"

"I don't know." He eyed me suspiciously. "I don't like the sound of what you're proposing."

"I swear, I genuinely want to help! The truth is..." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "I'm in a bit of trouble with the law."

"Ah." The doctor observed, no change at all in his expression. "You killed someone?" He asked, sounding remarkably casual.

"No! Why does everyone immediately assume that?" I demanded.

"Stole something?" He pressed.

"No!" I replied.

"What did you do, then?" He pressed.

"I fixed something I shouldn't have, helped a girl that everyone seems to think I kidnapped and embarrassed several important people." I finished. Any lie I made up would have sounded hollow, and as Rhapsody had professed, the true story of what had happened to me was already far too impossible for anyone to believe.

Doctor Basha laughed out loud. "Heh. So that's it, and now you're a fugitive? Are you sure you're not a hero? This story of yours sounds like a Tale of the Wandering Monk!"

I smiled slightly. "It does, doesn't it?"

"I don't believe a word of it, of course. You must be a con artist." He replied.

I realized belatedly that over the course of our conversation the two of us had reached a storefront with the Rivertongue characters for "Doctor" and "Medicine" painted above the windows. Doctor Basha stepped inside with surprising agility for such an old man and very nearly slammed his door in my face, but my hands wee quick enough that I managed to stop him from closing it completely, even as doing so did hurt my fingers.

"What if I showed you _everything_ first? What if I showed you _exactly _how I would do it?" I pressed.

"All right." Doctor Basha relented. "I must admit, I am terribly curious. But if you're not the genius you claim to be, I will call for the Night Watch and have you arrested!"

"The first thing I need is paper." I informed him as he let me into his business, which was clearly also his house. We went to sit in a study filled with herbs, musty old books, and a terrifying life-sized mannequin made to show all of the important points for acupuncture. Doctor Basha brought me a thick stack of paper and four sharp pencils. I started working immediately, and as I drew I explained each piece that was needed for the fountain and how it actually worked. When I was finished nearly an hour later, I put my pencil down and turned to Dr. Basha who was slowly paging through my sketches with a look of absolute awe on his face.

"This is genius! It's beyond anything I've ever seen! It could work! Dragons be praised, it _would_ work! But the fine machining of all of these parts... it's not something anyone could do. Perhaps a jeweler... but they don't do things on this kind of scale." He paused, eyeing me suspiciously.

"I do." I replied. "And I can do big."

"Yes, I'm getting that impression... but why? No one will pay you for this! They'd love to see it, naturally, but they won't believe you can actually do it." Doctor Basha informed me.

"If I fix this for you, will it help stop the plague? Will it stop people from suffering? " I asked the doctor.

"I've every reason to believe that it would." He replied.

"Then I'm going to do it. Money or no money." I replied.

"In that case, I am at your disposal." Doctor Basha bowed dramatically. "What do you need first?"

I caught a whiff of a familiar smell wafting in our direction from what I guessed was the doctor's kitchen. It was a dish of spiced rice that my mother had often made when I was a child, a beloved culinary specialty of The Scavenger Lands.

"Dinner?" I suggested hopefully.

"Of course!" My host agreed.

I stayed with Doctor Basha for nearly a month, earning enough money to purchase the supplies I would need to make it to my manse. Godchaser was seldom awake and even more rarely lucid, but she was excited to hear that I was fixing my water-purification machine and she was able to give me a set of directions that I suspected would get me close to my final destination, my mysterious manse.

Though Godchaser's hearthstone had been glowing steadily since our arrival in Nexus, it still failed to provide her with even a fraction of the Essence she needed to function. My work on the fountain went more slowly than I would have liked with the amount of energy that I regularly had to commit to my companion. Fortunately Doctor Basha had provided me with all of the tools and most of the mundane materials I needed in addition to a private place to work, a seldom-used guest room on the second floor of his house. My host often watched me suspiciously when we went out together to take our afternoon meal. He commented on more than one occasion that I seemed to know "_a __bit __too __much __about __everything"_ and asked if I had ever considered a professorship at Nexus's famed University.

Doctor Basha was a graduate of the School of Medicine himself and knew almost everyone on the staff. Together we went to several lectures given by a historian called Valen Riverborn who was supposively one of the world's greatest experts on First Age architecture and technology. Professor Riverborn stammered frequently and fumbled through his papers as he gave his presentations, which made it somewhat difficult to follow where he was going when he changed subjects, which he did frequently.

Not that I minded. Nothing he spoke on was particularly exciting. Clearly, Professor Riverborn was very worried about the dozen Immaculates who regularly sat in the front row of his lecture hall.

His assistant, who went by the name of Sapphire, or sometimes "Sapphire the Heretic" was another matter entirely. She never dressed appropriately for University functions, always covered in dirt and lamp oil with her firewands on her hips. While her mentor was lecturing, she picked her teeth with a knife and when he asked for questions, she would immediately propose something so controversial that I sometimes gasped in shock myself. Although Sapphire wasn't anything of the beauty that Rhapsody was, she was the kind of woman I'd always found attractive, brilliant and outspoken, even if she was a bit more brash than I preferred.

I considered asking Sapphire to join me for tea just to hear some more of her very good theories about life in the High First Age, but as I was about to introduce myself again, I caught her with a female student in the corridor, the two of them in a position which needed no explanation.

After that encounter, Doctor Basha and I rarely went to Professor Riverborn's lectures. Though Sapphire didn't seem ashamed to see us seated in the audience, we both found her presence to be very distracting.

Still, I was beginning to like Nexus. I didn't stand out amongst its citizens as I had in the Imperial City. Everyone spoke Rivertongue and a dozen other languages. Pale skin and fair hair were commonplace, as were names like Veritas, Acquiro, Brevis and Notissima… which had been my mother's name. Most importantly, there were a great many artisans and intellectuals. A number of them were Dragonblooded, but they were mostly Outcastes, not Dynasts which meant that they were somewhat less inclined to lord their middling status over everyone else.

There were also foreigners of every variety, from as far away as Halta, Gem, Whitewall, Chiarascuro, and Wavecrest, in addition to hordes of little Gods, ghosts and beastmen, most of them from the surrounding countryside. Despite what the Immaculate Order might claim about the necessity of hierarchy, the diverse and disorganized populace of Nexus seemed to thrive. There were even supposively also a handful of "civilized fae" in the city... although I was still unsure of how I felt about them.

Nexus was permanently flooded, not only with water that smelled like sewage but also with rules and regulations that were never enforced. All merchants were supposed to hold permits before selling their wares and yet every day as the Market Patrol began their rounds, dozen of "honest" businessmen went running off to hide under the Bridge of Whispers where the city's officials knew better than to look for them. Rude, crude and violent, the city was all of those things... and yet it never really threatened to tear itself apart at the seams as the Imperial City so often did. Too many warring factions had created an environment that didn't really have "oppressors" or "oppressed".

The official ruler of Nexus was called the Emissary. Whether he had truly been in power for more than seven hundred years – or whether his was a title secretly passed down from one "Emissary" to the next was a subject of much contention. An often whispered-about but seldom seen personage, he had created a simple set of three "Laws" that were the central inviolable tenants of Nexus's labyrinthine legal system.

The first Law was that Nexus would have no standing army, nor suffer one to be brought inside of her gates. Mercenaries flooded the city regularly, but they were seen as honest businessmen rather than tools of oppression.

The second Law was that no one would be permitted obstruct trade in Nexus. I didn't understand the specific context of the code, but the penalties were notoriously severe.

The third Law was that any person who resided in Nexus and built up a good business as a free man or woman would become a citizen, even if they had formerly been a fugitive. They would be protected under the city's laws and would not be returned to any oppressive authority, not the feudal lords that they had run from or even the Realm. I began tracking the days of my own residency... although I expected that the Law did not actually apply to Anathema.

The Emissary's laws were enforced by the local guard and mercenaries, the Night Watch, and influential members of the Guild, particularly those who belonged to the Council of Entities. The Guild was an organization not confined to any one trade or profession, but an amalgamation of all sorts of merchants and craftsmen, old money and new. Even Doctor Basha was a member of an unimportant sub-chapter of the Council of Acupuncturists, Apothecaries, and Alchemists. Though I had asked him not to tell anyone that I was staying with him, he appropriated some of my work while I was sleeping and passed it along to a friend of his, who passed it along to someone else and so on.

I quickly became the most desirable unaffiliated craftsman of Glassmaker's Row. I received invitations to dozens of parties and more than a few organizations approached me directly, hoping that I would support their faction. When I declined a prestigious invitation to join the Council of Jewelers and Watchmakers, my host became suspicious of me. Guild membership was the quickest path to citizenship and absolution from any past crimes and Doctor Basha could not fathom why I would not accept the gift was being so graciously offered to me.

Personally, I was somewhat nervous about the pieces of my work that Doctor Basha had "borrowed" to show to his friends. Though most had been returned before I knew they were missing, one of them had mysteriously vanished. While the cost of the metal alone was enough to annoy me, the fact that the missing item was a circlet adorned with a sun that resembled the one I had designed for Rhapsody's necklace made its disappearance all the more unsettling. I was told in no uncertain terms that my work had sparked the interest of an influential merchant called Saturnyne who'd passed it along to someone who sat on the Council of Entities. In short, I'd never see it returned. Worse still, a very powerful man or woman was also watching me.

As I became progressively more reclusive, wanting to avoid becoming embroiled in local politics, the steady supply of "discounted" or "on credit" materials provided by Doctor Basha that I had enjoyed for my first few weeks in the city had dwindled to a trickle and then stopped altogether. Godchaser's hearthstone began fluctuating again and when I ran out of metal for my work on the fountain, I decided that it was time for me to finish my journey and head to my manse.

The evening before I meant to make my intentions known I had trouble sleeping and wound up fueling Godchaser almost continuously with Essence so that she could stay awake long enough to explain exactly where my manse was and what I would need to do once I found it.

It was sometime after dawn when I heard the sound of my door opening, not soon enough for me to hide Godchaser, who looked nothing at all like a cloak. Not for the first time, I toyed with the idea of building her hands. Though I suspected that she would get into a lot of trouble if she were capable of opening doors or windows, she never asked me for anything else. Her very aspiration was to help me however she could, and hands would certainly make her more useful.

"Doctor Basha!" I gasped as my host stepped into my room. My glasses fell off my nose. I scrambled for them, and then moved towards the window, trying to hide Godchaser behind me with very little success.

"Uh oh!" Godchaser blinked owlishly, suddenly floating up over my head. Although she was still not fully functioning, she was so enamored with her repaired hover circuit that she had taken to drifting around at every opportunity. I'd modified my temporary link to the teleport circuit in a way that Godchaser could not fly me... except perhaps in an emergency, but she could levitate herself somewhat. It took a lot of energy out of her, but it made her so happy that I felt bad telling her to lie still.

"Heh. I thought I heard you talking to someone again." He laughed slightly, his gaze drifting towards Godchaser. "That's quite a machine you have." He observed.

"I'm not a machine!" Godchaser protested.

"I promise, I can explain!" I knew those words sounded idiotic the moment I spoke them. When I caught sight of my own reflection in the glass of my window, I realized that I'd burned just enough Essence that my Caste Mark was clearly visible.

"On second thought... I'm a very bad liar." I sighed in defeat.

"Strange for one of your breed." Doctor Basha paused. "But in fact, that was the first thing I noticed about you. I have a Charm that can tell me if you're lying. I used it on you when you first explained your plan to fix the fountain, and I'm using it on you right now."

"Well, I've evaded some questions that were... incriminating, but I haven't lied." I replied.

"I know you haven't. Everything you've said has been true and heartfelt. That's why I can't decide what to do with you." He replied, amazingly calm and collected considering the circumstances. I suspected, and not for the first time that I really wasn't a very good actor at all.

"I suppose you're going to kill me now. Or turn me over to the authorities?" I suggested. What I couldn't fathom was why the Doctor Basha hadn't already tried to kill me or called for the Night Watch.

"If I tried to kill you, you'd kill me – and probably by accident. And to answer your second question, this is Nexus. The authorities are worthless and they only work for themselves. I want you to answer a few questions for me, now that I know what you are. I noticed that you weren't working on the fountain. Are you going to finish it?"

"Right now I can't." I admitted. "I want to, but I need tools I don't have and... well, orichalcum! There are a few parts that need to be particularly responsive to my Essence and orichalcum is the only thing I can think to make them out of."

"Do you have a way of getting any?" He asked.

"Actually, I do." I paused, deciding not to tell him about my manse. "I was planning on leaving tomorrow and being gone for about a week. When I have what I need, I'll come back to finish what I started."

"Why?" Doctor Basha wondered.

"Because it's the right thing to do." I replied. "And I suppose it's kind of my redemption?"

"You want to be redeemed?" Doctor Basha wondered suspiciously. "In the eyes of whom?"

"I don't know, the Dragons?" I suggested lamely.

"But you're Anathema!" Doctor Basha protested. "Why should you care what the Dragons think?"

"Well, for what it's worth... I used to be an Immaculate monk." I sighed heavily. "I'm a great believer in law and order. I've always tried to do the right thing."

"But you didn't turn yourself in to the authorities?" Doctor Basha pressed.

"Why? Because I'm _infected_, is that it? Possessed by a demon?" I snorted. "The Dragonbloods think they know everything! But they're dead wrong about Anathema! They have no comprehension of what we really are!" Belatedly, I realized I probably should have spoken with a little less venom. Unfortunately, Rhapsody's convictions had rubbed off on me more than I wanted to admit. "I didn't _choose_ to be what I am!" I sighed heavily. "Doctor, is it fair to punish someone for something they cannot control? You're an Essence user yourself! What if the Realm decided that mortal Essence users were the enemies of Creation?"

Doctor Basha looked worried. We watched one another in silence for a long moment.

"If you had the choice, would you chose to be mortal again?" He asked. He stared at Godchaser, who stared back at him, looking very confused.

I hesitated. I suspected that he wouldn't like my answer and considered lying to him. Then I scoffed at myself. What did I intend to hide?

"No." I admitted truthfully.

What would I do if I stopped being what I was? Not that I believed it was possible, but if I could go back... would I? I'd never seriously asked myself that question before. If not for the power I possessed, so many of the things that I'd done in the past months would have been beyond my ability. The conniving little Gods that I'd come to love wouldn't be banging on my windows at night, singing my praises as they tried to weasel me into working for them. Like characters in a Tale of the Wandering Monk, I knew that both Rhapsody and Godchaser would vanish from my life. But all of that I could sacrifice. What I could not turn my back on was the sense of purpose that came over me when I looked out at the setting sun.

_I __was __needed. _And how could I possibly dream of turning my back on the whole world?

"Never." I finished.

Doctor Basha said nothing at all, but only watched me with a strange expression on his face. "Never?" He echoed incredulously. "But you're hunted and loathed and..."

"And right now I'm fixing a fountain that will provide clean drinking water for a thousand people." I finished. "Doctor, if you had the ability to change the world for the better, wouldn't you do it? I'm very ambitious, you understand. Too ambitious to be a monk."

We stared at one another again as he absorbed everything I had said.

"Are you going to let me go?" I wondered uneasily, picking up Godchaser and the set of tools that I'd cobbled together working various odd jobs throughout Glassmaker's Row.

Doctor Basha stepped away from the door. "Yes. I'm going to let you go." He laughed slightly. "And I'm also going to let you come back. I'll leave the cellar door cracked open for you. Of course, if you ever... well, do Anathema need medical care?"

"Almost never." I admitted. After everything I'd been through completely unscathed, I knew that much was true.

"The offer still stands. Should you need anything at all, ask for it." He chuckled. "My, I must really be flirting with damnation this evening!"

"For what it's worth, I appreciate you giving me a chance. You won't be disappointed." I promised.

"Of course I won't be disappointed! I'll be a dead if anyone finds out about this!" Doctor Basha laughed. I never thought I'd say this to a demon... but hurry back. And thank you."

"For what?" I wondered.

"For all of the things you've yet to do." He again glanced at Godchaser. "Do you really fuel that construct with your own Essence every night?"

"Only since her hearthstone started failed. It lets her regulate the Essence she already has. Without it, she just bleeds dry." I admitted. "A flaw in her design. I wish I knew how to fix it. I spent thirty minutes giving her Essence tonight. I'd just finished when you walked in."

"That's madness! How much Essence do you have?" He demanded.

"I'm not sure that I can actually run out." I admitted. "Although when I use a lot it's very obvious."

"Oh, I've heard! A light show the size of a behemoth? Parts of the anima coming to life and changing shape?" He suggested. "Is that an accurate description?"

"More or less." I smiled slightly. "Although from the inside, it's more like being in the middle of an exploding fireworks factory."

"Oh dear. I'm very glad we're friends." Doctor Basha laughed.

"Me too." I replied, putting up my hood.

He watched me as I left, a faint smile on his face.

"Maker?" Godchaser whispered when we had almost reached the city's gates. "There is something you should know."

"What is it, Godchaser?" I asked.

"Your friend the doctor?" She paused. "He's a Sidereal."


	8. Chapter 8 - Luna's Chosen

**Chapter 8 - Luna's Chosen**

I ran as fast as my legs would take me back to Doctor Basha's house, despite Godchaser's protests. When I arrived, I was stunned to find the business abandoned, probably for many years. I even woke some of the neighbors and demanded to see the doctor, but no one seemed to know who he was.  
>Although Doctor Basha had been very kind to me, his disappearance reminded me all too clearly of Himitsu's, and I shuddered to think what sort of malevolent plots he might have been hiding behind his little smile. Was I the only person in Creation capable of remembering a Sidereal when I encountered one? I was beginning to believe that was the case.<p>

Still unable to access most of her records, all that Godchaser could tell me was that Doctor Basha was something called a "Chosen of Serenity" and that she had not known for certain until he used a Charm in her presence. Despite how the innocuous the name sounded, such Sidereals were not necessarily any nicer than the sort I'd already encountered. In a futile attempt to calm me down, Godchaser also emphasized that not all Sidereals were necessarily bad. They were like bureaucrats, she explained, more or less corrupt because that was the nature of their profession... but some of them did truly believe in helping people.

One thing was obvious, however. I had no choice but to move on.

With Godchaser's somewhat incoherent directions and a good amount of food and supplies, I felt confident enough to undertake the last leg of my long journey. Pressed on by my desire to fix my companion once and for all and my promise to Doctor Basha, even if he was a Sidereal... I walked south for almost a whole day at a madman's pace, not bothering to stop for water or meals.

Just as the sun was setting and I was preparing make camp I heard the sound of people approaching. Not an army, thankfully, but definitely more than a dozen men. Before I could find somewhere out of sight to hide, a hand seized the hood of my cloak and lifted me clear off of my feet.

"Put me down!" I ordered, kicking air.

Whoever had seized me did not oblige, but turned me very slowly to face him. My captor was a scarred Southern thug dressed in blue lamellar, almost twice as tall as I was.

"Put him down!" A familiar voice ordered.

The thug set me on my feet as his companions, a large pack of beastman and mortals emerged from the forest.

Their leader, the one who had spoken on my behalf, was an enormous silver lion-man with striking blue eyes. Strange, swirling tattoos covered his whole body and he wore no clothing at all, save for a silver bracelet of a peculiar geometric design that immediately made me think of Godchaser. I knew I'd touched that bracelet before, and I felt a kinship with its bearer. The lion-man stared down at me with a troubling expression on his face. He motioned for his followers to give the two of us space and set his enormous paw on my shoulder. I didn't pull away.

"Hello, stranger." He said in perfect Old Realm, his bass voice touched with something like a purr. Despite the language he spoke in, I wasn't sure that he knew I understood him... and so I decided to give nothing away.

"What brings you down this road?" He pressed, switching to Rivertongue.

"My own business." I replied in the same. "Kindly let me pass."

"It is growing dark." The lion-man argued.

"I don't care." I replied. "I'm almost home."

"There is no village for many miles." He informed me.

"I'm on the way to my estate." I lied, choosing a word that sounded less incriminating than "manse".

"Is over there the "estate" that you speak of?" He smiled slightly, gesturing in the direction of my pack and the pile of wood I'd gathered to make a fire. "Perhaps your formidable castle might shelter my great army for the night?" He gestured to his followers, which numbered seven lion men and a dozen unsavory-looking mortals. Although the big Southerner who had grabbed me looked very much like an Imperial soldier, the rest were dressed in a combination of old leather and patched southern silks. I suspected they were probably bandits.

They all laughed.

As I saw it, I didn't have the option to refuse hospitality. In all fairness, I didn't own the woods I'd taken shelter in any more than I owned the road or the river that ran alongside it. The bandits immediately set about pitching their camp on top of mine and building my little campfire into a beacon of flame that could doubtless be seen for miles. Not that I worried too much.

Generally speaking, the armies of the Realm did not tolerate armed groups tramping about the countryside. If any patrol did come upon us, I did not doubt that my "guests" would be in as much trouble as I was, if not more. Although I hadn't seen them, I had heard that some of the Ravenous Winds had arrived from the Blessed Isle and were scouring the area for fae. I didn't want to take the chance that a member of that notorious Wyld Hunt – Sam, perhaps... might recognize me.

"So, Lord Silvermane... I take it we're not robbing this lost little noble?" One of the men asked.

_Silvermane. _The name suited him. I was certain I'd heard it before.

"No. " Silvermane replied. "On the contrary. He is now under our protection."

"What? Why?" The Southerner demanded.

"I don't need your protection!" I retorted.

"You do." Silvermane replied with certainty, not raising his voice even as I snapped at him. "More than you realize, Lawgiver!"

I froze as he spoke that sobriquet. All of Silvermane's men watched me in disbelief, their eyes briefly darting back to their leader as if they expected one of us would say something very important. I couldn't find the words myself. I only stared at Silvermane.

He already knew that I was a Solar? But I'd done nothing at all to incriminate myself!

A faint chill rippled down my spine as our eyes met. Once again, the leader of the bandits seemed familiar to me. Though he'd joked about spending the night at my make-believe "estate", Silvermane's strange poise and the word that he'd just spoken made one thing very clear.

I was in charge. Silvermane would do whatever I wanted. He'd even let me continue unmolested if I demanded his cooperation, but he wouldn't like it. He wanted to stay as close to me as possible. I didn't know how I knew all of that, but I knew it just the same.

"Where are you really headed?" Silvermane pressed.

"I'm going to my manse for supplies. I'm trying to stop the plague from spreading in Nexus." I explained, deciding not to complicate things with further lies.

"Feh! That is beneath you!" The Southerner scoffed. He watched me very strangely, something in his eyes that seemed to suggest he would prefer to be on his knees in my presence.

"Helping people is beneath me?" I glared at him. "Doctor Basha..."

"Doctor Basha?" Silvermane snarled, not allowing me to finish. "You're working for that charlatan? He's a ruthless zealot! He'll kill you with no remorse at all! He used to be an Immaculate monk!" He finished, as if that were the most damning accusation he could imagine. Even knowing that Doctor Basha was a Sidereal and probably not really my friend at all, I felt compelled to defend him.

"_I_ used to be an Immaculate monk!" I snapped. Frustrated as I was at the predicament that I'd found myself in, I had learned that if I wanted room to breathe, all I had to do was flare my Caste Mark. With the sun sitting on the horizon line nearing its set, I couldn't have painted a more powerfully effective picture.

The bandits quickly backed away from me, murmuring to one another in disbelief, but Silvermane stepped forward. He put his hand on my shoulder for the second time and met my gaze without hesitation. He was so calm that I almost relaxed myself.

_ Almost._

"My apologies. I think we started off badly. What is your name?" He asked.

"Veritas." I replied with a heavy sigh. "Veritas Ilumio."

"Well, I am called Silvermane. This is my lieutenant, Six Claws." He gestured to the Southerner, who demonstrated the source of his peculiar name by holding up his arm which was deeply scarred. "We represent The Sun-King Seneschals and we mean you no harm. Will you stay the night with us?" Silvermane pressed. "In the morning, we can escort you to your manse."

"I don't need an escort!" I argued. "I'm packing up and I'm leaving now!"

"As you wish." Silvermane nodded and stepped aside, motioning for all of his followers to keep out of my way. I furiously stuffed my pack, throwing items everywhere and then stopped as I saw I had ripped a hole in my bag of rice and poured its contents all over the ground.

"Why do you want to help me? I asked slowly.

"Why do you want to help the people of Nexus?" Silvermane retorted.

"Because it's the right thing to do." I replied.

"Yes." Silvermane nodded. "So it is. And the one you know as "Doctor Basha" is a good man. He is always the first to come forward when people are suffering. He has great compassion, which may redeem him in spite of all the lying and manipulating that he does."

"If you thought that from the beginning, then why did you try to start a fight with me?" I demanded. I didn't say the word "Sidereal". Silvermane had clearly avoided it himself and I guessed he had a reason to. I did not have to ask if he knew what Sidereals really were. I suspected he would tell me if I asked him in private.

"I needed to see if you believed your own words. I needed to be certain that you were truly who I thought you were the moment I saw you." Silvermane explained. "And it is so. The Unconquered Sun has kindled in you a rare spark. Your return has been long awaited. But you will need many hands to accomplish your vision. Hands that I will gather for you, should you wish them."

"Why would you do something like that for me? You don't even know me!" I wondered uneasily.

"I have _always _known you. And always will." Silvermane replied. His response did not startle me so much as my own realization that there really was no better way he could have explained it.

I did know him. I had _always_ known him. I just didn't understand _how_.

"Sit down, drink, eat with us!" Silvermane gestured to the bonfire his men had started. "It's still a long way to your manse. We will go in the morning. And in the meantime I will answer any questions you have for me."

I sat near the fire, and Silvermane set himself only a few feet away from me. As he sat, a strange flickering of light the color of the moon washed over him and his appearance changed.

In moments the lion was gone, and in his place sat a big, silver-haired northern man with a short beard and the same swirling tattoos all over his body. He was dressed in an archaic fashion, mostly blue and black. It was not the style of clothing favored by bandits, not even well-off ones. Silvermane was dressed like a nobleman... albeit a nobleman who had for some reason torn the sleeves off of his shirt.

All of his followers stared in disbelief.

"But Lord Silvermane, your oath!" Six Claws stammered.

"Has been fulfilled." Silvermane replied.

I blinked in surprise myself. If he had seemed familiar to me when I saw him as a lion, I was certain that I knew Silvermane as a man.

"Please excuse the behavior of my men. I fear I have told them far too much about you. And they are not used to seeing me in this form. I have not worn it in a long time. Sometimes difficult to remember that I was born a man and not a lion." Silvermane laughed slightly.

"You're not a beastman?" I observed.

"You've never met a Lunar before?" He seemed surprised.

I remembered what Rhapsody had said about her "Clever Devil" and suddenly understood her need to go to Great Forks as I never had before. If every Solar had a Lunar match... had I just met my own?

"No." I admitted. "I was raised in the Imperial City. I've only been traveling for six months and aside from Nexus, the only other place I've ever lived is the Abbey of Mela."

"The Abbey of Mela?" Silvermane echoed.

"I told you already. I _was_an Immaculate monk." I explained.

"No! You were _serious_?" Silvermane exclaimed. He tilted his head to the side and squinted at me strangely.

What are you doing?" I frowned.

"Trying to see if you still have your soul." He informed me. "You do."

"Thanks." I laughed slightly despite myself. As the full moon peered out from the dark clouds overhead, I was reminded that I hadn't given Godchaser her daily dose of Essence. Also, the moonlight helped me see Kahn more clearly.

_ Kahn_? Where had I gotten that name from?

"So you obviously know who I am." I paused. "Is there a reason you want to help me? Or is it just altruism? And does the name Kahn mean anything to you?" I felt compelled to ask.

The Lunar hesitated. "These days I live however I may, on the very edges of civilization... but before The Usurpation I was proud to call myself a Steward of the Yanazi River Valley. It was once a beautiful and prosperous country with the purest water and best rice in all of Creation. While not nearly as fashionable as Meru or Calypsis, it was ruled by a pair of noble and compassionate Solars, Lawgivers who loved and served their people." He paused. "Kahn is my name, the name I was born with before I became one of Luna's Chosen. You... _Perfect_ always called me Kahn." He corrected himself.

I'd heard the name Perfect Mechanical Soul before. Godchaser had informed me that it was what my name had been my past life when I'd built her. It was still all very strange to me, but I couldn't argue that it wasn't real. The little that I remembered of Perfect's experiences felt as true to me as my memories of my mother and father, and my years in the Abbey of Mela.

When I saw Silvermane sitting across from me, I found that I remembered him very clearly, coming to observe something I had built and not being suitably impressed with it. It had annoyed me at the time and even still, his utter lack of appreciation for anything I built that wasn't a bridge, a building, or some kind of waterworks set me on edge. Or it would have anyway, if I was still Perfect and not myself.

"You knew Perfect? How old are you?" I wondered.

"More than 2,000 years. I don't know exactly." The Lunar replied.

"You don't look a day over fifty." I informed him.

"You didn't look older than thirty when you were nearly three-thousand!" He replied.

Three-thousand years was a lot of time, almost dizzying to think about. More troubling still was the familiarity in our conversation. I knew Silvermane as well as I knew Godchaser and felt that I could trust him implicitly.

"Assuming I believe all of this... how exactly did you know my previous incarnation?" I asked.

"First, we were created at the same time." Silvermane sighed heavily. "Then, we fought in the Primordial War side-by-side. After the War was over, we ruled the world together! Stop trying to sound like a skeptic! You _are_ the person you once were and you know it! Not physically, obviously, but in every way that truly matters. Part of you is divine, and that part of you _is _Perfect! And the more you come to know your nature as a Solar, the more you will understand _everything_."

Silvermane paused. "Perhaps the memories of your past life were lost to you for a time, but they've begun been coming back, haven't they? I have heard the story of your Exaltation, of how you leapt from the roof of an Immaculate monastery and worked sorcery as you fell." He laughed. "Luna as my witness, I truthfully believed that all of us returned in the same manner, weak in the knowing of things and unable to command all of our once-great powers. It should not have been possible for you to work sorcery without ever having studied it, or for a mere mortal to repair a device as sophisticated as the one you are currently wearing!"

I instinctively reached up to touch Godchaser's flickering hearthstone.

"I have much experience, with Solars, Veritas. Already you are doing things that would be difficult for an Exalt five times your age! Mad as it sounds... there are those who truly believe that your predecessor has simply returned from the dead." Silvermane explained. "More importantly, you are not the first of your Circle to have returned in this manner. There is some sort of celestial meddling going on." He whispered, scarcely loud enough for me to hear him.

"I really don't know what you're talking about. As I see it, I've just gotten lucky." I replied uneasily.

Godchaser giggled.

"Godchaser says you're a liar." Silvermane replied.

"How do you..." I began, again struggling with the word "Sidereals". I was almost afraid that if I said it, one of them would hear... and Silvermane seemed to think the same. He glanced at Godchaser with a smile.

"How do I know her name?" He changed the subject. "Why, I was the one who named her! What you called her was far too long, and no one could remember it correctly. This life's turning may be more awkward for us than the last... but as Creation is these days, either of us could die at any moment. Either of us could die, and we would be reborn. And in time we would meet again, as we are meeting now. I may not know your face and you may not know mine, but we will never be strangers." Silvermane smiled slightly.

"I'm not the same person. I doubt that we'll have the same relationship." I informed him.

"Oh, that is obvious! You are a man in this life!" Silvermane laughed. "Also, I currently have a wife. To be perfectly honest, she's not very smart... but she is a good woman. I suspect she'll be relieved to learn that you've come back as a man. She worries sometimes that I might get bored and abandon her. I will, probably, one day." He chuckled slightly, but there was something in eyes that spoke volumes more than he said. I knew with certainty that if I suggested that we run away together he would all too gladly follow me.

That thought was troubling. Personally, I preferred women, although I had never had much luck with them, not even when I was wealthy. And even if I hadn't met Rhapsody, I wouldn't have wanted to send any sort of mixed signals to Silvermane. I liked him immediately, but I could not imagine being a woman... which was perhaps why the idea of having a _husband _from a past life did not sit very well with me.

But was it as simple as that? What Silvermane had said about the two of us being created as a pair stuck in my mind. We balanced one another somehow, on a strange, unknowable level. I'd been blown by the wind from one corner of Creation to the other and hadn't even realized how precarious my grip on the world had become. Silvermane was grounded, immobile like a rock. He was sanity in an otherwise mad world and simply being in his presence made me feel more secure in my own skin. Despite my apprehension, I'd found myself creeping closer and closer to him until we sat side-by-side looking into the flames of his campfire.

"Are you married? Do you have a family?" Silvermane asked me.

"I was an only child and my parents are dead. I've never married." I paused. "But... there is someone."

"Oh." Silvermane observed with a smile. "I know that look! What's her name?"

"Windswept Rhapsody." I replied. Her name did have a musical quality to it, and when I'd told Doctor Basha about my lovely bard... I'd almost forgotten that he would think of all the folk songs that she had written about herself.

Silvermane paled suddenly. "Excuse me? What did you say?"

There was something wrong, I could tell from his face.

"Do you know Rhapsody?" I wondered uneasily.

"Yes, I... I _knew_ Rhapsody." He admitted.

"Something's happened to her?" I stared in disbelief. A thousand different horrible thoughts were hammering through my mind and I swore I felt my heart skip a beat.

"It is very hard for me to say this." Silvermane explained. "But a terrible thing has happened. I fear that Windswept Rhapsody is dead."

"Dead? But we parted ways in Nexus... it's only been a month since I saw her last! She was on her way to Great Forks. How can she be dead?" I demanded. Questions simply poured out of me. I wanted to believe that Silvermane was wrong.

No... I _had __to_ believe that Silvermane was wrong!

"We may never know what happened." Silvermane paused. "As I'm sure you know, Windswept Rhapsody lived up to her name, traveling from place to place with a seldom a trace of her presence left behind. But I heard a song played in a tavern not three nights ago. I asked the bard where he had learned it and he could not remember. And so I went to the place that his song spoke of, an inn near a bridge on the banks of the Yellow River. That was where I found this." Silvermane admitted, producing something wrapped in a handkerchief. "I don't recognize it, but... it seems like something she would have."

I saw only the cord made from my old cloak and one blue bead, but that was enough.

"It's hers. I made it for her." I whispered, hearing the tremor in my own voice as I spoke.

"Ill news. I had hoped that it was not so." Silvermane paused.

"If you didn't bury her, I won't believe she's dead!" I informed him, my voice a little harsher than I had meant for it to be. "And if she is dead... someone is responsible!"

"Perfect, I know what you are thinking and you must not do it!" He warned. "If you have any love in your heart for Rhapsody at all, know that she would not want you to avenge her! She would want you to continue doing what The Unconquered Sun Exalted you for... not go chasing after her ghost!"

Although he had called me by the name of my previous incarnation again, I didn't correct him. What could I have said? He was right, I had to admit it. But I didn't have to like it!

Silvermane stared at me gravely and then gave me Rhapsody's amulet without speaking. I didn't look at it, putting it directly in my pocket where it sat like a cold lead weight against my heart.

"You're not going to sleep tonight, are you?" He asked.

"No. Not a chance." I admitted. Though I still wanted to ask Silvermane about Sidereals, my mind was still fixed on Rhapsody. It would have to wait.

"Lie down at least. Close your eyes for a little while. There is nothing either of us can do presently and things will seem clearer in the morning." Silvermane advised. He looked ready to say something else, and I waited for him to finish speaking but he never managed another word.

He simply turned and hugged me for a little longer than I felt comfortable with and then excused himself to go check on his men. Long after he'd gone, I found myself staring up at the night sky and trying to convince myself that Silvermane was wrong. I had to believe that Rhapsody was still alive... that I could find her, wherever she was, and save her. Even if she had left me with no notice at all, I couldn't stomach the thought of anything bad happening to her.

Rhapsody could not be dead! No one with a soul could have possibly harmed her!

I did not sleep at all that night. I paced and cursed, laid down, got up again and drank far more than I should have. Not for the first time, I worried over the extent of my own power.

While I was still convinced that I was supposed to be a force for good, I could not ignore how the wheels in my mind had spun effortlessly as I considered a number of ruthless ways to find and punish whoever had killed Rhapsody. The same skills that had allowed me to restore the life-saving fountain in Nexus could just as easily be put to work building something inconceivably deadly. Or...

I knew that I could banish demons. Could I summon them?

I woke with Rhapsody's amulet clenched so tightly in my fist that its rays had imprinted themselves in my skin. Silvermane stood over me with a walking stick in his hand. He helped me to my feet and passed me the stick.

"So where are we going, Kahn?" I wondered, trying to conceal the fact that I had spent most of the night gritting my teeth and ignoring Godchaser's quiet, supportive whispers. I realized only belatedly that I had instinctively called him by his old name.

"Up." Silvermane replied, gesturing to a large hill in the distance. I wouldn't have called it a mountain because trees covered its summit... but it was definitely the biggest thing around for miles.

"My manse is on top of that hill?" I observed, feeling my spirits sink.

"No, your manse _is_ that hill! There was a great flood at the time of the Contagion and it has been covered with dirt for many centuries. The main doors do not open, so we will have to go all the way to the top. That is why I brought you a stick." Silvermane laughed. "Another lifetime and you still don't like walking?"

"I hate it." I replied. "I got used to it before I sailed for Nexus, but three months on a ship spoiled me."

"I can't imagine being on a ship for so long." Silvermane grimaced.

"At least there's no walking!" I retorted.

As distant as the mountain had appeared, in less than a day we had reached our destination. If I bought myself a horse or procured some other sort of transportation, I could likely make the journey from the city in just a single day.

As we traveled, I didn't say much to Silvermane. All of his men seemed to worship the ground that I walked on, so there was no sense in trying to strike up a conversation with any of them. Besides, my mind was still on Rhapsody and Sidereals. Something told me that the two were connected in a manner that I wouldn't like.

When we neared the manse, Godchaser woke. She said something incoherent about being very close to our destination and then began to whistle, drawing the attention of all of our traveling companions... but especially Silvermane who smiled nostalgically as she swept off of my shoulders and hovered after him.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect as we neared the mountain's summit. Part of me saw white marble columns with golden veins while at the same time I considered that a cave might be more appropriate. Nothing could have prepared me for the enormous, seamless orichalcum box that sat silently on very edge of treeline, glowing faintly with the light of the mid-afternoon sun.

The rest of the manse was buried... and I couldn't guess or remember what it had looked like.

"It's a box." Six Claws observed.

Silvermane's second-in-command was not very bright.

Fortunately, I didn't need instructions. As I had when I'd first laid eyes upon Godchaser and my fountain, I knew exactly what to do. I put both of my hands on the orichalcum and poured Essence into it. I could feel the instability of the manse as I sent my Essence racing through its walls. When I'd exhausted all that I could and started to burn visibly, I took a step back.

"Open." I ordered in Old Realm. The box opened obediently, revealing a cave-like entrance filled with rocks and mold that more closely resembled my original expectations. "This is probably as far as the rest of you should go. This place is very unstable." I admitted, still shaken by what I'd felt before opening the door.

"Are you certain that you don't need my help?" Silvermane pressed.

"You'd only be in danger." I informed him.

"No more danger than you!" He snorted.

"I'd be in more danger then." I replied. "On account of worrying!"

"You'd worry about me?" Silvermane eyed me suspiciously.

"I'd worry about anyone who followed me into this place." I retorted, trying to underplay my extremely awkward confession. "I don't really know how long this might take. There's no sense in waiting around for me to come out. Head back to where we camped before and I'll find you before I return to Nexus. And please... tell me if you hear anything of Rhapsody."

Silvermane nodded. "Count on it."

The door closed between us.

Godchaser giggled.

"What do you think is so funny?" I demanded.

"_You_." She replied, saying nothing.

I took a deep breath and surveyed our surroundings. "So this is the "home" you've always talked about?" I observed, grimacing as a stone and a clump of moss fell from the ceiling above my head. "I'm not impressed."

"It used to be cleaner." Godchaser admitted.

"I'll bet!" I laughed slightly, although I saw nothing particularly funny about staggering into a potentially deadly ruined manse. "What now?"

"Well, now we go to the hearthstone room." Godchaser replied.

"And where is that?" I demanded.

"Down." Godchaser replied. That was all she remembered.

Eighteen flights of stairs later, we were still descending. "How much farther is it?" I demanded.  
>"I don't know! It's close but I don't know where and I'm already getting tired and I..." Godchaser rambled.<p>

I leaned against the wall and sighed heavily. An invisible door slid open behind me and I fell to the floor.

"Oh. Found it!" Godchaser observed.

"Yes, I noticed." Rubbing my bruised elbow, I looked up at the room we'd just entered. It was not very large and in the center of the space was a pedestal flooded with golden-white light. A brand-new hearthstone identical to Godchaser's hovered in midair, burning like a falling star.

So that was the trouble with the manse? It had been trying to produce a new hearthstone, the first it had born in more than a thousand years! I reached forward to touch the stone. It was so beautiful that I couldn't stop myself. And yet moments before my fingertips would have made contact, a face made of light burst out of the hearthstone's pedestal.

"Maker!" Godchaser shrieked. I covered my head and fell to the floor.

"How dare you enter my manse? Who do you think you are?" The apparition roared, speaking in Old Realm with the voice of a woman. Whatever it was, it was clearly meant to terrify... but I would not be deterred.

Without hesitation I poured as much of my Essence as I had left through the new hearthstone and into the manse, focusing on the parts that were the most unstable and forcing my will on them, telling them to mend. For the briefest of moments, the shifting face stabilized and I saw a woman looking down on me. She could have been my sister with how similar we appeared, but I knew who she was. I recognized her as I would have recognized my own reflection. She was Perfect. "I'm _you_." I informed her.

The apparition of Perfect froze. She considered me for a moment and then smiled faintly. "So you are." She whispered. And as she disappeared, I realized that I had done it... I'd saved the manse and seized control of it. All of the Essence it produced was flowing unrestricted through Godchaser, and from its new hearthstone into me. The feeling was almost dizzying, like a drink of water after a long run.

"You did it!" Godchaser exclaimed. "I'm better! I'm all better!"

I smiled and immediately passed out.

Some hours later I woke up to a large spider crawling across my face and Godchaser hovering over me, looking concerned. The manse's new hearthstone was still in my hand and there was no sign of its guardian, the last surviving vestiges of my previous incarnation. As I walked out of the hearthstone room, the wall closed behind me with a slight hiss. What had been a door became an almost invisible crack in the wall, too subtle for anyone to detect. I continued on down the stairs, still tired but energized by my success and the constant, steady flow of Essence from my new hearthstone. I was especially eager to see what gems my past self might have hidden in her secret stronghold.

Finally, I reached the very bottom of the stairs. A solid orichalcum door stood before me, engraved with five symbols, one for each Solar Caste. As if possessed, I slowly traced the marks for Dawn, Zenith, Night and Eclipse. When my hand stopped on the Twilight, the door slid open. A huge gust of stale air assaulted my senses. I coughed and looked up. Despite the fact that I was still glowing involuntarily, there was not enough light to see anything.

Godchaser whistled. "Oooh, what a mess!" She exclaimed. Like a candle against the dark, Godchaser hovered up and away from me, higher and higher. Around her I caught brief glimpses of exciting-looking things and began to wonder just how big the space we had entered actually was.

"Ahah!" She observed. "Maker, throw something up here!" Godchaser shouted down. "Throw something right at me!"

"I don't have anything to throw!" I protested, squinting as I tried to guess how far away she was. Maybe a hundred feet up? I was surprised that I could still hear her. Months ago, I would have protested that I couldn't possibly throw anything so far, but I wasn't in the mood to feign weakness then. I looked around for something that might do significant damage.

"Throw a Resplendent Whirlagig! You've got a million of them!" Godchaser retorted. When I didn't immediately oblige, she must have guessed that I didn't know what she meant. "Ugh, Maker! One of those round things by your foot!" She clarified. I looked down. I was standing almost on top of a pile of little orichalcum balls each about the size of a child's toy. Without bothering to consider what they were or what they could be used for, I picked up the closest and hurled it up with all the force I could.

There was a loud crack as my ball struck something metal and a shower of dirt cascaded down from the ceiling. Wincing as a rock hit my shoulder, I saw that the sun had begun to shine into the room. I picked up another orichalcum ball and threw it in Godchaser's direction. More dirt fell from the ceiling and a loud groan of creaking metal drew my attention. Godchaser cheered as I hurled one last ball. When it struck its target, the ceiling opened up like a flower in the morning and all of a sudden, the room was filled with light.

I stared. It was all I could do.

"Maker?" Godchaser wondered, hovering down to join me. "Are you all right?"

"I am either _dreaming_ or _dead_." I replied.

"I know it's dirty, but do you like it?" She asked.

"That's not a strong enough word." I replied. "Can we get some more light in here? Light!" I ordered in Old Realm. In response to my voice, the manse rumbled to life.

Of course! It was so simple! Why hadn't I remembered to do that before? Even in the dark I'd been awed and I hadn't even seen half of what there was to see. The main chamber was more than four hundred feet long and twice that wide, but what was really remarkable was just how the high the ceiling was. I knew I'd been down a lot of stairs, but from the floor I felt like I was staring up from the Underworld.

Staircases on either side of the open room lead to various platforms of different heights that I could tell were designed to raise and lower themselves. The entire room was impossibly huge and filled with so many books that I could never hope to read them all... not even if I did have more than 3,000 years.  
>High above I could see a fragment of sky where the metal panels that formed the roof had cracked open slightly, littering the floor with dirt, rocks and dead leaves. A prismatic blue butterfly flew just over my head and a massive orb-weaver spider had made its home across the stairs.<p>

There was more raw material than I knew what to do with... orichalcum, moonsilver, jade... things I couldn't hope to identify. One table held a bowl full of glimmering hearthstones, keys to who knew how many more hidden manses scattered throughout Creation.

I'd never been inside the Heptagram but I had to imagine that even the greatest Sorcerers of the Realm would have wept had they entered into that wondrous laboratory. It was more sophisticated than the finest factory I'd ever seen with the grace of a cathedral, not merely a workshop, but a sacred space, a temple to knowledge and craftsmanship.

I recognized the furnace directly in front of me from my memory of building Godchaser and there was an enormous screen of some kind on the opposite side of the room. The wealth of unfinished projects on every open surface caused my head to spin. I could work for centuries and never fix everything!  
>Although... I <em>did <em>know where I wanted to start.

There were two strange-looking, birdlike constructs resting on a movable rig at least forty feet off of the floor. For a moment I marveled at them and wondered how they'd gotten up so high... but then Godchaser noticed what I was looking at.

"Hm." She mused, hovering up to inspect the nearest one. "Oh, the warbirds? I wonder if this one will still fly?"

"_Fly_? I echoed. "You mean, out of here?" I gazed up at the open roof.

"Of course! Maker, you didn't make a roof like that to just let bugs in!" She reprimanded me.

I surveyed my manse, shocked by the realization that nothing had been disturbed since I'd seen it last except by nature. If anything, the butterflies and the overgrown foliage simply made the room even more exotically beautiful. I caught a copper-colored spider scurrying away from my foot and held it up to the light.  
>It wasn't any species that I recognized, and when I adjusted my glasses and looked at it very closely, I realized it was actually a tiny construct!<p>

"Well now, aren't _you_ fascinating?" I laughed, poking at it. Like a living thing, it reared up on four of its eight legs and batted at my finger. I sighed and released it onto the floor. To my surprise, it did not run away. It followed me. A dozen others of its kind emerged from every hidden corner of the room, and then a dozen more. There were hundreds of them, a tiny army! Godchaser floated over my shoulder as I approached the main terminal and dusted off the chair that sat in front of it. The spiders surrounded me. They looked as if they were waiting for something.

"Tell the spiders to go work." Godchaser prompted.

I turned to the spiders. "Go work." I ordered in Old Realm.

They immediately skittered away. I didn't know what they would be doing and wasn't sure that I should care. How much trouble could a little spider cause anyway? I brushed the dirty and dried leaves off of the control panel for the massive terminal in front of me. I hadn't the faintest idea how to operate the device... if it even worked at all.

"Hello, I AM." Godchaser chirped. "We're back!"

There was no response.

"I said we're back!" Godchaser repeated. "Hello? Hello, I AM? Maker, I AM is broken!" She whined.

"We'll see about that!" I replied. I glanced briefly at the small toolbox I'd cobbled together before leaving Doctor Basha's house and shoved it with my foot under a nearby table, reminding myself to bring it back to the mysterious Sidereal... when and if I could actually find him. I wouldn't be needing it any more.  
>I'd caught sight of a familiar cabinet in the far corner, as tall as I was and six or seven feet wide. There were no handles to open it, but I didn't need anything so mundane. The faintest brush of my fingertips caused the pristine white panels to slide open, revealing every kind of tool I might ever desire as well as some I couldn't even name, all brilliantly crafted.<p>

The ones meant for the heaviest or most complex work were painstakingly forged from magical materials. I picked up a very small pair of silvery pliers. When I gave them an experimental squeeze, they changed shape slightly. Focusing intently, I gave them a bit of Essence and told them to twist slightly to the left, and then to the right.

"I see you found your tools." Godchaser observed. "They're distracting you, aren't they?"

I couldn't bring myself to respond, still mesmerized by the little pliers I held in my hand.

Effortlessly reading the expression on my face, Godchaser laughed.


	9. Chapter 9 - Sidereals

**Chapter 9 - Sidereals**

Though I didn't know what I was doing, I spent some hours muddling about with the enormous device that Godchaser had referred to as I AM. Despite the fact that nothing inside of it was obviously broken, I found that I still could not coax it to respond to any commands that I gave. I discovered a strange connecting cable that caused Godchaser to shriek with delight. It was made to attach to her, and so I threw caution to the wind and let her plug herself into the enormous terminal. For a moment she was bobbing up and down with excitement, but then she fell still.

"Something wrong?" I wondered.

"Well, there is some information in here, but just your personal files. And I can't find I AM. It's gone." She explained.

"Was I AM a friend of yours?" I wondered.

"It was the biggest AI in Creation" She replied. "But... just because it's gone from here doesn't mean it's gone from everywhere." She tried to sound optimistic, but I doubted that she believed her own words.

"Are you crying?" I wondered.

"No." Godchaser lied.

"Well, we do have a lot of material and information here. Give me a little time and maybe I'll think of something?" I suggested.

"It wouldn't be the same. You didn't build I AM, Maker. Your rival built him. Her and the Sidereals." Godchaser explained.

"Sidereals? Is there anything they're not involved in?" I snorted. Then it occurred to me what Godchaser had actually said. "Wait, I have a rival?" I wondered.

"Oh, yes! You did, anyway. _Tess_." She replied, speaking that name as if it were something she loathed almost as much as the word "Anathema". "Ahah, there are some files left! I can take these! And ooh! It's a picture!"

"Show me!" I demanded.

"I, uh... I am a little busy, Maker. Tell I AM to show you Altessa Endymion." Godchaser replied.

"It can show me pictures?" I wondered.

"It can bring up any files it has." Godchaser admitted. "Which is not very many, since I am taking most of the useful ones right now." She explained.

"All right, I AM. Show me Altessa Endymion!" I ordered.

A life-sized image appeared in front of me, as real as if the woman was really standing in the center of the room only a few feet away from me. She was almost as tall as I was with deeply tanned skin, platinum blonde hair and bright green eyes. Dressed in very fine clothing, she wore a large number of strange artifacts all over her person, most notably a hearthstone amulet with a pinkish sphere inside it, a stone I _knew_I'd seen before. Of course, when I tried to touch her... she disappeared. But the fact that the I AM terminal could make a projection so realistic gave me an inspired idea.

"So this databank we're accessing works like you do, Godchaser?" I asked.

"If you mean that it's mostly broken and missing important data, you'd be right about that." She replied curtly.

"But it can record things too, and play them back?" I clarified.

"Oh, of course. Probably. That isn't very difficult." She admitted.

"I AM, show me myself!" I ordered.

The device hesitated for a moment and then a woman appeared standing across from me. She was dressed in a white cloak that knew had to be Godchaser and a stunning orichalcum circlet bearing the Twilight Caste symbol. She was beautiful in a rather harsh way, and her nose was even more pointed than mine was. It made her look stubborn. Without a doubt, I was staring at the same woman who'd tried to stop me in hearthstone room. I was looking at my past self.

"I AM needs a new picture." Godchaser observed.

"So give it one." I replied. "You can do that, can't you?"

"Of course!" Godchaser scoffed. The image of Perfect vanished and a life-size projection of me appeared in its place.

"You don't have more recent picture of me than that?" I pressed, staring at myself. I was dressed in monk's robes and my head was still shaved, but no one would have mistaken me for an Immaculate, not with the mark that was burning on my brow. Obviously the picture had been taken right after I'd Exalted... I wasn't yet covered in dirt or deer berries. There was an absolutely dumbfounded expression on my face.

I realized belatedly that I was looking at myself as Godchaser had first seen me.

"I like that one!" Godchaser retorted. "But if you want a different one, Maker... I have many more!"

The monk "me" vanished, Perfect reappeared.

I walked around her, and as I did, her eyes followed me. "You know, she looks like she could be my sister." I admitted.

Godchaser didn't respond, probably sorting through her collection of pictures. "Ah, here's a good one!" She exclaimed.

The image of Perfect faded and once again I was left looking at myself again... this time tied to a tree.

"You wicked machine!" I laughed despite myself. "Have you ever recorded me when I wasn't about to be killed?"

Godchaser did not respond, but she looked very smug.

"I AM, keep up the current image. And bring up the previous one also." I ordered.

The two projections glanced at one another... Perfect in her finery and myself tied to a tree. I studied them both.

"Have I always looked so much the same?" I pressed. It was impossible to ignore how strongly I resembled my previous incarnation. I looked more like her than either of my own parents.

"Always?" Godchaser echoed.

"I must have been reincarnated more than once before. It's been 1,500 years!" I reminded her.

"Maker, this is first time you've been back." Godchaser informed me.

"Why?" I pressed.

"I don't know. Sidereals?" Godchaser suggested.

"I like that word less every time you say it. And you still don't know what exactly they are, do you?" I asked.

When she did not respond, I turned to I AM. "I AM, what do you know about Sidereals?" I demanded.

A fragmented mess of Old Realm characters made of green light flooded the room, swirling across the floor with a force that scattered leaves and scraps of paper all around. When I looked closely at them, I saw that they were all variations of the same character, meaning "jade". When I tried to touch them, they rose up all around me in a circle, making a cage.

"Godchaser? What's happening?" I whispered fearfully. She pulled free of I AM but did not swoop to my rescue. She only stared at the device.

"_Jade __Prison._" She said in a voice that did not sound like her own.

That was when the power went out.

I was able to get the lights back on with only small amount of Essence and a few orders to my army of little mechanical spiders, but there was no response at all from I AM. Still uneasy after whatever it was she had witnessed, Godchaser admitted that she didn't know what the words "J_ade P__rison_" meant or what they had to do with anything.

She did confess that they scared her very badly and made her think of Himitsu. I was not at all surprised. The more I learned about all of the things Sidereals meddled in, the more I became convinced that building Godchaser in order to hunt them down had been an act of compassion on the behalf of humanity.

With Godchaser's help, I removed her mangled teleportation circuit and left it on a work table so that I could fuss with it when I finished the fountain in Glassmaker's Row as I'd promised that I would.

Searching my manse, I found not only enough raw materials to last me several years but also an entire box full of ready-to-install parts labeled "water-purification machine". On my way out the door I picked up the ordinary tools I'd borrowed from Doctor Basha, sneaking a few extraordinary gems from my new collection into the bottom of the box. Since I was trying to maintain a low profile, I figured it was best to avoid anything that would attract too much attention... but I couldn't resist bringing along the little shape-changing moonsilver pliers I had discovered. While probably not necessary for finishing my fountain, I had discovered that they were the ideal tool for working on Godchaser.

"All right, let's go!" I decided. "We've got a fountain to finish!"

"But I'm still getting data! Godchaser argued, still hovering over I AM with a vacant expression on her face.

"You can finish later." I informed her. "We're coming right back here once that fountain is up and running. And I might need your help while I'm in the city. You can watch my back."

With that exact purpose in mind, I'd carefully made two little holes in the hood of my cloak. I could now turn Godchaser's mask around, hide it on the back of my head, and have her make sure that I wasn't being followed or observed.

"Okay!" Godchaser agreed, disconnecting from the terminal and hovering after me.

It did not take me as long to get out of my manse as it had taken me to get in. A few motes of Essence applied to the walls of the long stairwell caused the floor beneath my feet to move. I simply stood in one place and let the steps automatically ferry me all the way to the exit. As difficult as it was to close the doors and leave such a treasure trove behind, I had a promise to fulfill.

Though I didn't feel any particular loyalty to "Doctor Basha" or whoever he really was... there were plenty of other people were counting on me to repair the fountain. Clean water could help keep the spreading plague in check. Even if I was wandering into some sort of Sidereal trap, It was the right thing to do.

Seeing my manse and recognizing all of its glorious potential had burned the last of "The Wandering Monk" out of me. While I wasn't about to sit idly by when people were in danger, everything I'd one dreamt of suddenly seemed very small. I could do more than stop a dozen bandits in their tracks. With time and preparation, I could change the whole face of Nexus. And then, as I'd promised Doctor Basha... there was work to be done throughout Creation.

Having such an extraordinary hiding place would doubtless make all of my plans much easier to accomplish. According to Silvermane, a large number of foolish treasure hunters had apparently fallen victim to the multitude of traps within my manse... and now anyone with a sense of self-preservation gave the place a wide berth.

I hadn't seen any traps personally, but that was only because the door that I had entered through was not the one that others would think to use - but a secret escape shaft only accessible to someone who could put forth an extraordinary amount of Essence. The other ways in, of which there were several... were all designed to deter intruders.

Though I was somewhat disturbed by the bloody-mindedness of my predecessor, I had to admit that I didn't have a terrible amount of sympathy for someone who intended to rob me or kill me while I was asleep. More importantly, I suspected there were many things inside my workshop that did not belong in the hands anyone but me.

I still hadn't said anything to Godchaser about my epiphany, though I found myself smiling slightly every time she grumbled about my "stupid list" or said the words "Caste Mark" and then promptly apologized.

I knew that she'd start gloating if she heard me reciting my morning prayer and I didn't want her to get too excited because I was certain that there was still some sort of unresolved flaw in her hover circuit. Even after I'd removed all the slag connected to it, she was still moving erratically despite being full to the brim with Essence and gifted with a new hearthstone.

I'd given her the one the manse had just finished producing and taken her old one for myself. It seemed to be working well enough, and when I set it into a pendant and slipped it around my neck, I was pleased to discover that it provided me with a steady supply of lovely, warm, Essence. The feeling of wearing the stone was something akin to basking in the sun.

"Wait!" Godchaser demanded, floating after me. I reached for her and she settled around my shoulders, resuming her cloak-like appearance without coaxing.

"Too much walking!" She complained.

"What are you whining about, you stupid machine? I'm carrying you!" I reminded her.

"Yes, but walking is _boring_!" She protested. "Can't you just use sorcery?"

"No." I replied.

"Why not?" Godchaser demanded. "Because it makes you glow?" She taunted.

"I'm not a sorcerer." I corrected her. "A sorcerer casts spells _on __purpose_. I've only ever cast them by accident."

"Ugh, Maker!" Godchaser groaned. "You are a sorcerer, and I don't care if you don't like me saying so! Your list is stupid. When we get home, I'll show you which book you need. You need to learn a spell called "Stormwind Rider". It's Emerald Circle, it's easy! Even a Dragonblood could do it!"

"Shh!" I ordered her. "Not another word out of you! Someone's coming!"

Godchaser fell silent. I slipped behind the closest tree and waited to see who was approaching on the road. There were a dozen soldiers on horseback, all dressed in the colors of the Ravenous Winds.

"How far are we from Nexus?" The first complained.

"A day." The second shrugged. "Probably less than that. Longer if it starts raining again." He glanced up at the black sky overhead.

"I tell you, this is a right royal mess that Talonlord Calil has put us into." The first sighed heavily. "This Cathak Loren of yours had better be as good as everyone says."

"Loren is extraordinary." The second smiled slightly. "You haven't met him yet, but you'll understand when you do. If he'd been better bred, he'd be his father's right hand in the Scarlet Legion. Really a shame when you think about it."

"Absolutely!" A familiar voice chimed in. "Greatest damn military genius the Realm has produced since the Roseblack and here he is, wasted on us!"

When I briefly poked my head out of my hiding place to see if it was Sam who had spoken as I feared it might be, I accidentally caught a twig on my cloak and snapped it.

The first soldier gave a low whistle – he didn't seem to hear me. One of the men behind him suddenly stopped. "Did you hear that, sir?" He wondered uneasily.

"I didn't hear anything." The first admitted.

The second paused. "These woods are filled with all kinds of spooks." He snorted. "Word has it that a mean old Anathema used to have a fortress not far from here. We can go see it if you'd like."

"Oh, I'll pass!" His companion laughed, sounding very uneasy.

"Nothing to see anyway. Just a bunch of barred doors in the side of a mountain and big orichalcum box that's impossible to open. Dunno what's in it. Probably something murderous. Or a toy of some kind." He sighed heavily. "Possibly both?"

"Yeah, demons are weird like that." Sam replied.

It _was_ him!

I held my breath as the soldiers passed by and waited until I was sure they were gone. "Did you sense any Sidereals, Godchaser?' I asked when they had all ridden off.

"Um..." She paused.

"You're not sure?" I wondered.

"No, I'm just trying to count how many. _Three_, I think."

"Three Sidereals! All of them with the Ravenous Winds?" I exclaimed in disbelief. "What are they doing here?" I demanded.

"Well, Maker... I could be wrong, but I think they are probably looking for _you_." She replied.

"That's no good. All the more reason for us to get back to Nexus!" I replied.

"But aren't you worried about running into Doctor Basha? He might expect you to come finish the fountain!" Godchaser protested.

"Even if he is a Sidereal, he helped me when he didn't have to. I think I'm better off trusting him than those who've thrown in with that Wyld Hunt." I replied.

"I dunno. I like Sam. Especially when he calls you Copper... oh, the list!" Godchaser groaned. "Stupid list!"

After how many times she had repeated that sobriquet, I had added "Copper Spider" to Godchaser's "banned words" category. Of course, that had all been before Godchaser's hearthstone failed and I'd met Rhapsody. Sometimes it felt like no time at all had passed, and other times I was startled by how much Godchaser had really missed. "Damn the list!" I sighed heavily. "Sam is a Sidereal too?"

Truth be told, I had expected as much.

"Yes, almost certainly. Of the Sidereals I detected, one was a Chosen of Journeys. That's Sam." Godchaser nodded. "The soldier who was riding up near the Fanglord and complaining so much is a Chosen of Battles and the other is a Chosen of Secrets. I think."

"_Secrets_? Oh, wonderful!" I grimaced.

"Well, as I said when we were talking about Doctor Basha... not all Sidereals are like Himitsu. In fact, I thought Sam might be a Sidereal when he first met us, Maker... but I didn't want to alarm you." Godchaser admitted.

"What alarms me is that these damned sneaks are everywhere and neither you nor I nor anyone knows what they are or what they're doing – except that they work in some kind of bureaucratic capacity and most of them are corrupt! And the fact that no one can remember them is awfully convenient, especially with how they keep seeming to pop up wherever they can cause the most trouble! Honestly! Is anyone who likes me _not_ a Sidereal?" I demanded.

"Rhapsody likes you." Godchaser replied. "I like you!"

"Rhapsody likes everyone, and you're biased!" I informed her, though just hearing Rhapsody's name made me worry for her. Godchaser did not seem as convinced as Kahn was that Rhapsody was dead and since I preferred to keep things optimistic myself, I decided to continue hoping too.

"Well, what about Matsu and Tick and Jing Wei?" Godchaser protested.

"Jing Wei threatened to throw me off his ship!" I reminded her.

"So? You always threaten to take me apart!" Godchaser reminded me. "Sometimes people say mean things when they love each other!"

"You're not helping, you stupid machine!" I smiled despite myself.

As fast as my legs would carry me, I made my way back to Silvermane's camp, wanting to warn him about the Sidereals that Godchaser had detected. When I arrived there, Kahn and all of his men were long gone. I spent the night in a ditch without daring to make a fire and as soon as the sun had risen, I hurried back to Nexus.

I did not make it to the city's gates until several hours after sunset and I didn't run into Doctor Basha or anyone else I knew on Glassmaker's Row. It was the middle of the night when I arrived at my fountain, which was just what I had hoped for... less chance of anyone catching me at work. I applied myself diligently to the last meticulous adjustments that I needed to make and installed the small orichalcum gears that I'd found already forged in my manse.

Finding the box of parts labeled "Water Purification Machine" had been somewhat of a disappointment as I still had a very strong desire to fire up the plasma furnace. Such intense heat along with a significant amount of Essence was the only way to work large pieces of orichalcum and my fingers were itching to do something very big and dramatic.

Fortunately, the last necessary step to repairing my fountain was going to be a real challenge. I stared at the piece of messy paper that I'd scrawled my plans on, and then at the ancient book that I'd stuffed it into. The last thing I had to do was cast a spell. Though realistically I knew that I was capable of sorcery... the thought of consciously working it still left me feeling apprehensive. I would become obvious as soon as I began, and if the results of my efforts were too loud or too bright, I'd be sure to catch someone's attention.

Also, I had a distinct feeling that I was already being watched.

"Oh, Maker, look! It's Two!" Godchaser exclaimed suddenly. "Hello, Two!"

I pulled her mask down over my face and turned quickly to see what she was shouting about. On the rooftop behind me, silhouetted against the moon was figure dressed in a white cloak with an ivory mask obscuring his face.

If I hadn't known better, I might have suspected that I was looking in a mirror at my own reflection... or at least a reflection of Godchaser.

But the stranger who'd come to watch me work was wearing much nicer boots than I was and a pair of pristine white gloves.

I knew him immediately from the stories of my childhood.

_ He __was t__he __Emissary of Nexus._

Without hesitation, I leapt up onto the roof to meet him. With no one around to catch me, I couldn't resist the opportunity. Also, as Godchaser had recognized... The Emissary's infamous white cloak was her predecessor, the Ninefold Harmonic Essence Tracking and Teleportation Device second prototype or "Two" for short.

"Nice cloak." The Emissary observed, speaking in Old Realm.

"I should say the same. Who are you?" I replied, doing the same myself.

"I'm The Emissary." He replied.

"I guessed that much. But who are you _really_?" I pressed.

"Why should I tell you that?" He retorted.

"Because I made that cloak you're wearing. And I'd wager I'm probably the only person in Creation capable of fixing it." I informed him.

"Well, this one was stripped down centuries ago. It doesn't do anything fancy, not with how many parts it's missing." The Emissary laughed. "I purposefully disabled the independent personality and I know enough to keep the other functions running myself."

"Really?" I observed. "You must be very clever."

"Not quite as clever as you." He answered. "But I do try."

"So I suppose that there's no chance that you and I might sit down somewhere, remove our masks and have a nice little conversation?" I asked.

"No chance at all." The Emissary sighed heavily, crossing his arms and looking down on me. It was impossible to tell what expression he had on his face behind his mask, but it felt like a smirk. I was very glad to see that the ruler of Nexus was not the soulless monster that so many believed that he was. Though I was someone disappointed not to be able to actually see the face of someone just like me, I couldn't blame him for being cautious. I was just as much of a mystery to him as he was to me.

"I suspected that was the case. You don't have a problem with me working on your city, do you?" I wondered.

"No. I'm actually rather thankful. I've no talent for fixing things." He admitted.

"So I've noticed." I replied.

"I am a bit particular about sorcery, however. May I see what spell you were about to cast?" He asked.

I showed him the spell in my book.

"Oh, well that's fine." He shrugged, as if it were no great thing. I did not doubt that whoever he was, The Emissary was far more powerful than I was myself. More strangely still, although he was not willing to reveal his face, the two of us seemed to get along as if we'd known one another forever. "I suspected that it was just a little Emerald Circle muddling. But I am warning you now! No Adamant Circle sorcery within one hundred miles of this city!" He warned.

"Perish the thought!" I laughed uneasily. All I really knew of sorcery was that there were three circles, Emerald, Sapphire and Adamant... and that no one besides a Solar could cast a spell of the Adamant Circle, the most powerful sorcery in Creation. I'd been right in my initial assumption.

The Emissary _was_ a Solar! If only anyone knew!

"Well, carry on then!" He sat on the rooftop

"You're going to watch?" I wondered, setting down my book.

"Oh my, are you self-conscious? But do continue! I've always wanted to see an old-school Devonian in action." He folded his white-gloved hands just under his chin.

"I'm not working sorcery with you up there looking down on me! It's obnoxious!" I informed him.

"Well, I suppose I shall just have to show you how we radical young Silurians get things done." He retorted, hopping down to the fountain and picking up my book. He glanced at it for a moment and then snorted disdainfully, cracking his knuckles.

I said nothing. I'd no idea what either of the words he'd used meant, except that Godchaser often used the word "Devonian" when she rambled on about sorcery. I gathered from the way the Emissary stood that he was about to cast the spell himself. Deciding to pretend that I was not as impressed as I actually was, I hopped back up onto the roof into the exact spot where he'd stood when his intention had been to watch me.

The Emissary glanced up at me. "Now that's no fair at all!" He put his hands on his hips.

"I suppose not. But do continue!" I replied.

As The Emissary cast his spell a faint, wavering golden light blossomed all around him. If I'd had any doubt that he and I were the same before, it vanished the moment he called up his Essence. The Spell did not take very long and when it was done it was practically invisible... not very impressive, not in comparison to Emerald Banishing, but it seemed to do what it was intended to.

I came down from my perch and reached into the fountain, scooping up a handful of crystal clear, clean water. "It works." I smiled slightly.

I turned to thank The Emissary, but he was already gone.

That was when I noticed that someone, The Emissary, no doubt, had already defaced my work!

Of course, when I saw what had been written on the side of my fountain, I found that I couldn't remain angry. It was a piece of Old Realm poetry. There was no signature, no evidence of who he was quoting, just the unmistakable symbol of Twilight Caste carved into the stone.

_ "You __see __many __stars __at __night __in __the __sky __but __find __them __not __when __the __sun __rises; __can __you __say __that __there __are __no __stars __in __the __heaven __of __day?__So,__O __man! __Because __you __behold __not __God __in __the __days __of __your __ignorance, __say __not __that __there __is __no __God."_

It was _perfect_.

I heard the sound of a door opening nearby.

Doctor Basha stared in horror as I turned to face him. Belatedly, I remembered my mask and took it off. Godchaser giggled.

"Oh, Veritas!" He paused, looking embarrassed. "I thought you were the Emissary!"

"We have do have similar taste in clothing." I admitted, smiling slightly. "But no... he just left."

"The Emissary was actually _here_, in Glassmaker's Row?" Doctor Basha blinked in disbelief.

"Don't act so surprised." I informed him. "I know you're a Sidereal."

"Ooh. Blasted paradox!" He grimaced. Almost immediately, Doctor Basha appeared to be thirty years younger and a foot taller with a long white braid of hair and a pair of fascinating silvery bracelets on his wrists, which were crafted to look like spiders. He adjusted his glasses and sighed heavily, his hands on his hips. "Dear Maidens, I suppose I should have known better than to try to a Resplendent Destiny on the legendary Godchaser!" He remarked dryly.

Godchaser giggled, sounding unforgivably smug.

"So who are you, really?" I pressed.

"Call me Sirus. Chosen of Serenity, as I'm sure you already know, and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Rivers and Waterworks." He bowed dramatically. "It's a pleasure to actually meet you."

"Ah. Waterworks. That explains why you were so interested in my fountain." I smiled slightly.

"Oh yes. Clean water is more important than most people realize in this ignorant age." He replied. "I'd love to discuss it further now that you have me unmasked, but I'm afraid that my time here is rather limited and I did distinctly see you conversing with The Emissary. It's unwise to trust him!" He reprimanded me.

"And I'm supposed to accept that warning coming from a Sidereal?" I frowned.

"You have a point." Doctor Basha... or rather, Sirus sighed heavily. "Well, hate us all you like for the mess we've made, but do keep in mind that the Bureau of Destiny is not a unified oppressive entity! Every Division is divided on many issues, even the Cerulean Lute... and we're supposed to be the _serene_ ones! Those of us who are members of the Gold Faction do support you Solars, even if you don't know we exist." He finished.

"Yes, I've noticed that. But why is it that no one can remember you?" I demanded.

"Oh, I'm not permitted to share that information." He replied. "And my superiors are already bound to be upset about you bursting my very useful doctor disguise!"

"I broke your disguise because I knew you were a Sidereal?" I demanded. "What's paradox?"

"It would take me hours to explain and even then, you wouldn't understand." He sighed. "Suffice to say, it's meant to keep us on our best behavior."

"Hm." I observed. "I suppose something has to. Tell me, Sirus... do you know the name Himitsu?" I asked, throwing all caution to the wind.

The Sidereal paled. "Himitsu?" He pressed, as if he was sure he hadn't heard me correctly.

"Yes. That's the name that I know him by, anyway... though I've also heard him called "Iron Lotus" among other things. He's a Sidereal who's been following me around for more than five years." I prompted. "Is he a friend of yours?

"Absolutely not! Himitsu is an unrepentant scoundrel who ought to be audited a thousand times! He cannot be trusted at all!" Sirus informed me. "He'll almost certainly get you killed!"

"Tell me something I don't know." I snorted, unimpressed. I did notice that he'd said the word "audit" and thought immediately of Rhapsody... but if she and her Lunar friend were not already mixed up in some mess with Sidereals, I figured it would be dangerous to set any of them onto her trail.

"In fact, possibly the only person in all of Creation more dangerous than Himitsu is the man you were just meeting with." Sirus replied.

"The Emissary?" I wondered.

He nodded, a very grave expression on his face. "Deal with him at your own peril."

"Well then, before you ask... I've never met the Emissary before tonight and I certainly didn't summon him here. Apparently he heard about my project and came of his own accord. Wanted to see it finished, I suspect." I admitted.

"The device is fixed then?" Sirus asked.

"See for yourself." I gestured to the fountain. The Sidereal fell to his knees and put both his hands in the water, splashing it in the air like a child, an expression of absolute awe on his face.

"Veritas?" Sirus wondered.

Of course, I'd taken his moment of distraction as an opportunity to vanish myself, hopping back onto the roof where I'd met the Emissary. Sirus looked around for a moment, clearly trying to catch sight of me... or perhaps only to determine whether or not he was being watched himself. Content that no one of consequence could see him, he promptly disappeared as if he had never been.

That was an impressive trick! Without waiting to see if the Sidereal would reappear, I took off running off into the night.

When I made it back to my manse two days later, I found more trouble waiting for me. The door on top of the hill was ajar and when I put my hands on the hearthstone pedestal in the central control room, I detected a strange disturbance, some kind of unfamiliar Essence at work. Very quietly, I crept down the stairs but did not use the main entrance to my workshop. Godchaser guided me to a secret passage that began in the hearthstone room and let out on the airship dock some forty feet above the floor. Hiding behind the first warbird, I evaluated the intruders.

There were three of them, and they were all glowing from the Essence they'd expended. The first was an angry-looking man dressed in utilitarian clothing... surrounded by a red aura with the symbol of Mars burning on his brow. Beside him was a boyish-looking woman, similarly dressed who was smoking something... tobacco or opium, I couldn't be sure of which. She had a blue aura, but I couldn't see her face with the way her bright green hair tumbled over her eyes. Sitting across from the two of them in my chair was a blond woman dressed in a very nice black and gold kimono who was glowing green. Her nose was in a book and she wore a little pair of golden glasses that made her look very much like my childhood history tutor... the first woman I'd decided that I was in love with. I would have found very attractive if had not realized immediately what she was.

"Sidereals!" Godchaser yelped.

There were Sidereals in my manse!

I stayed where I was and watched them, almost holding my breath.

"Someone's beaten us here." The blue Sidereal observed, glancing from my open tool cabinet to the bucket and pile of rags I'd been using to clean I AM's console and the floor. "Do you think it might be Perfect?"

"That's impossible!" The angry red Sidereal scoffed. "No Solars survived the war! Perfect's been dead for 1,500 years. And even if she has reincarnated like everyone says, she can't have been here already! It took all of our personal Essence to get through those doors! And even if you subtract what we put into the Harmonic Adapter..." He fell silent, glancing at each of the women. Neither of them seemed convinced.

"But what if she's _not_ a brand-new Solar?" The blue Sidereal protested. "What if Perfect Mechanical Soul is really back? I've heard the stories! That bitch makes Paradox like nobody's business! You _can't_ hide from her!"

"Estelle, Perfect isn't coming to kill us!" The red Sidereal surveyed my manse with a disinterested snort. "Although frankly, I am a little disappointed that The Godchaser raiment isn't here. I've heard that Chejop Kejak would give an undisclosed favor to get his hands on it."

"Well, I don't know about that." The green Sidereal sighed heavily, flipping through her voluminous pages of notes. "Himitsu said..."

"_Himitsu_ is going to get us all killed! Sure, maybe he used to be Kejak's right hand man, but that was a long time ago and _nobody _knows who he works for now!" The red Sidereal snapped. "Think about it! Where is Sam?" He prompted.

The two women glanced at one another but did not respond. They both looked worried.

"See my point now? Sam goes to meet with Himitsu and he doesn't come back. We don't get any notice, no new orders... and he's just _gone_?" He snorted. "He's probably _dead_!"

"Well, if we are all about to be killed, I want it to go on record and say that it was _not_ my idea to go after the frickin' Godchaser!" The blue Sidereal protested. "We've already got _enough _trouble with Shadowsbane and The Faeslayer! If the three of them join forces with The Emissary, it'll be The Three Circles Society all over again, and I'm handing in my resignation to the Bureau!"

"You can't resign from the Bureau of Destiny!" The green Sidereal protested.

"Which is why it's the worst job in the world." The blue Sidereal replied, lighting up to smoke some more. I was beginning to suspect that she never really stopped. Not that I blamed her. From the sound of things, the Sidereals were even more disorganized and disillusioned than Sirus had implied.

The green Sidereal took something out of her pocket and slowly approached I AM. She attached it to a connection cable and waited, surveying the sea of numbers and glyphs that suddenly flooded the room.

"Well?" The red Sidereal put his hands on his hips.

"It's got some kind of encryption on it. A new one." She observed.

"Of _course_ it does! Fucking Twilights!" The red Sidereal rolled his eyes.

Godchaser smirked. I didn't say anything, but I would congratulate her for whatever it was that she'd done once the Sidereals were gone.

"Well, would _you_ leave something like this alone?" The green Sidereal pressed.

"What kind of question is that?" The red Sidereal demanded.

"If you didn't know anything, wouldn't you try to find out what had happened?" She clarified.

"No. Because I'm not stupid!" The red Sidereal replied.

The green Sidereal sighed. "I don't think it has anything to do with being stupid. It's about not knowing enough to be afraid. These new Solars are all really ignorant. And that's our fault in a way, isn't it? So why are we stealing more information from them? If they don't know where they went wrong, won't they be more inclined to repeat their past mistakes?"

"Damnit, Whisper!" The red Sidereal snapped. "You may be our field supervisor, but I've had enough of your Gold Faction bullshit! I don't care what _you _personally think of Solars! All I care about is whether or not I'm going to have to kill one today!"

"You're missing the point, Jonah! We _shouldn't _be doing this!" Whisper looked ready to cry. "It's wrong! It's not part of our orders!"

"Calm down, Whisper! Jonah's just frustrated. And we can't all be Chosen of Battles, sifu." The blue Sidereal scolded, "Since Sam disappeared you've been ripping into Whisper nonstop and that's not helping this situation at all!" The blue Sidereal reprimanded him.

"Estelle, _don't _defend the Goldie!" The red Sidereal, Jonah, snapped. "Let's just do what we came for and get out of here."

"Yeah, before the Godchaser latches onto our Essence and paradoxes us all back to Yu Shan!" The blue Sidereal rolled her eyes.

Godchaser grinned very broadly and I knew that she had already identified each of them... which meant that even if they donned one of their exceptional disguises she would know what - and who they really were.

The thought made me very smug. Whisper watched the small device she had connected to I AM for a moment and then unplugged it.

"Maker, they're taking all our data!" Godchaser hissed. "Do something!"

"Shh! Godchaser, they can't know you're here! It's you they're looking for!" I waited until the Sidereals started fighting with one another again and then took off Godchaser, rolling her up and tossing her in the open hatch of the nearest warbird. She peeked out almost immediately and stared at me in confusion.

"Stay put!" I warned. "No matter what!"

Seeing that my uninvited guests were about to leave, I leapt down from my perch and stopped Jonah in front of the exit. He blinked in surprise.

"Going somewhere?" I demanded, crossing my arms and glaring at him.

"We were just leaving." Estelle tugged on Jonah's arm. He only brushed her away.

"Oh no, I don't think so! Not until you explain what you are doing here!" As Jonah tried to sidestep me to get himself in a more advantageous position, I caught his wrist. He easily evaded my grasp and tried to retaliate with a move I knew very well. I countered him.

"Snake Style." The red Sidereal observed. "I wasn't expecting that." He admitted.

"I wasn't expecting to come home to three Sidereals myself. Today is full of surprises! So you're a Chosen of Battles? What exactly does that mean?" I asked.

"None of your business." Jonah replied.

"Wrong answer." I attempted to wrestle him to the ground, but he swept my feet out from under me. As I tried to jump up, he caught me with an extremely forceful palm strike that sent me skidding across the floor on my back. For a moment I couldn't breath and I began to realize that I hadn't really thought things through.

I couldn't necessarily subdue three Sidereals as easily as I could a handful of Snow Owls or bandit monks. They were Exalts, at least as strong as a Dragonblooded and possibly even stronger than me. Possibly? No, most definitely - Jonah in particular! Whatever bureaucratic body they worked for had sent the three of them out _expecting_ that they might run into me! I was definitely in over my head!

"Not bad." Jonah admitted, cracking his knuckles. "But you won't beat me with just Snake Style." He seized me by the collar.

Without looking down, I fumbled around on the table behind me for anything I might use as a weapon. When my fingertips brushed a teleportation circuit, I knew I had what I needed. "Then I suppose it's a good thing I've got some other tricks up my sleeve!" I shot back.

I fueled the circuit with as much Essence as I dared and gasped for breath as the world around me exploded into fragments of light. One moment I was on the floor in Jonah's grasp, the next I was falling into one of my bookshelves from two floors up. As I scrambled to my feet and dodged several heavy tomes, I saw that one of the volumes that had nearly landed on my head was marked with three circles in gold on its white leather cover.

It was a spellbook!

That moment was clearly fortuitous, and so I seized it. With my head still spinning from my reckless teleportation, I wasn't sure that I would succeed at whatever I attempted, but I was prepared to try sorcery... so I supposed that had to count for something. I threw open the book and stared at the title of the spell.

_ The __Ravenous __Fire._

That sounded promising. I evaluated the instructions for a moment and blinked in surprise as I suddenly realized that sorcery was like _mathematics_! I'd never expected it to be so _easy_! The incantation rolled off my tongue effortlessly. It took me a moment to realize that what I was doing was reshaping the fundamental laws of Creation to conform to my will. That was when the spellcasting actually became a little scary... but I was already too far along to stop.

The Sidereals didn't see me until it was already too late. Fire poured from my fingertips like dragon's breath and went where mind told it to, burning leaves and rubble but avoiding anything important as it chased the horrified Sidereals out of my manse.

Their shouts and screams assured me that they'd escaped, but only by the skin of their teeth. I didn't really want to hurt them, but I did want to make sure they got the message that I wasn't someone to be trifled with. When I was sure they were gone, I casually went back down to the floor and picked up the green Sidereal's little device which was completely incinerated.

"Well, whatever they wanted to steal... they didn't get it." I observed.

Godchaser cautiously hovered down from where I had left her. She examined I AM for a moment and then spent a long silent moment staring at the burnt stick. "Not steal, sabotage." Godchaser paused. "Maker, I think there's something the Sidereals don't want us to know."

"Beyond the fact that _they __exist_?" I hazarded a guess.

"That is annoying, isn't it?" Godchaser replied with a snort. "I wish I remembered more."

"There wasn't anything in the data you retrieved from I AM?" I pressed.

"No!" She sighed in defeat. "And I am getting very frustrated!"

"You're not the only one." I paused. "I do think Kahn might know something. But he obviously doesn't want his men to hear it, so we'll have to get him alone." I admitted.

"Ah!" Godchaser exclaimed. "Do you want me to find him for you then? I can track the bracelet you made him!" She volunteered.

"No, we're not leaving here just yet." I glanced at my reflection in the glass of I AM's enormous screen. After the Spell I'd just cast, I was burning very brightly. There was no way I'd make it anywhere as I was.

"You are glowing a lot." Godchaser observed. "And I heard lots of shouting from where you put me inside the warbird. What did you do? Did you cast a spell?"

"Yes." I replied.

"Oh, good!" She exclaimed. "Which one?"

"_The __Ravenous __Fire_." I replied.

"Ah! Useful! Could you cast it again?" She pressed.

I hesitated "_Yes_." I admitted.

"And you know what that means, don't you?" Godchaser smirked. "Because before you said..."

"Yes!" I groaned. "I'm a sorcerer! Are you happy now?"

"Hee!" Godchaser giggled. "You just used one of the words on your stupid list!"

I'd completely forgotten that "sorcerer" had been on my list as well.

"Keep gloating and I will dismantle you!" I warned, waving a wrench at her. Godchaser swooped behind the nearest work table.

"Eeep!" She shrieked with enviable melodrama.

I put my hands on my hips and stared up at the sliver of sunlight that cut through my broken roof. As soon as I had a reasonable supply of food and water, I knew that nothing short of the end of time would convince me to leave my manse. Even if I did have to chase Sidereals out every day, it would be entirely worth it. I was _home_. And I had so many ideas!

When I finished fixing all that I could in Glassmaker's Row I'd start work in Tellnaught or Harlotry. I'd rebuild Nexus from the ground up. Kahn would help me. Doctor Basha, "Sirus"... whoever he was, he'd help me too. The Emissary... well, he wouldn't exactly help me, but I could tell he definitely approved of my work. And sooner or later, I'd convince him to tell me the story of how he'd acquired "Two".

I was done being "Recluse", hiding under wagons and avoiding the critical gaze of those saw me only as a monumental failure, an arrogant mere mortal who'd dared to reach too high. I casually scrawled my surname in chalk across the floor, the same flamboyant characters I'd always used to sign my work when I'd been employed by the wealthiest and most powerful Dynasts in the Realm. But as I evaluated that familiar signature, I realized that just as I was no longer "Recluse" - I wasn't "Master Ilumio" either.

I scrubbed out the chalk lines with my shoe and then drew a large circle with a line directly through its center. "Godchaser, what do you think?"

She hovered over to where I sat on the floor and stared at my work in bewilderment. "What is it?"

"It's my new signature." I replied, thinking of how the Emissary had marked my fountain.

"But it's nothing! It just looks like your Caste Mark!" She protested.

"_I __know_." Now when _that_started appearing on public works throughout the city... I imagined it would turn a few heads!

"Oops!" Godchaser exclaimed. "I'm sorry. I said "Caste Mark". I know that's on your list."

"It's all right." I laughed.

"Maker?" Godchaser wavered slightly, as if she weren't entirely convinced that I was being serious.

"We need to have a talk, you and I. I've been meaning to tell something you for a long time now... but I haven't had the chance. Things have been too busy, and until we made it back here you weren't able to stay awake for very long. Godchaser, I want you to throw away your list." I finished.

"Okay!" Godchaser agreed readily. "No more stupid list!" Not much of a chore for her, it seemed.

"And now we're going to make a new list." I paused.

Her face fell. "Awww!" She protested.

"This list is for me. And you'll like it!" I smiled slightly. "You'd better start recording. I'm only going to say this once!"

I was still glowing very brightly from the Essence I'd expended and in a way, that seemed particularly appropriate.

"I, Veritas Ilumio, in the interests of living up to the ostentatious name given to me by my long-suffering, dearly departed parents and also in the interests of better serving the whole of Creation as is now my responsibility... am making a list. My faithful Godchaser will record this list as a testament to the sincerity of my intentions, and she may play it back to me, in whole or in part, whenever I violate one of the four rules that I am about to lay down for myself."

"First and foremost, Godchaser has never steered me wrong. I will make more effort to heed her warnings, and because I am thankful for her loyal service, I will no longer threaten to dismantle her... more than once a week."

"Ooh! That's unfair!" Godchaser protested.

"Second. I am _never_ going to hurt anyone I don't have to. But I am going to go well out of my way to inconvenience certain Sidereals who seem to think that they can't be held accountable for whatever it is that they're doing!"

"Hah! Much better! I support that rule!" Godchaser giggled.

"Keep listening, I'm not done yet! Third. Everything I do, I do because it's right." I vowed. "I'm not going to throw my life away, but I'm not hiding either. If something needs fixing, I'm going to fix it. And if that means that more than a few people are going to find out what I am... well, that's what it means. If I'm hunted and hated for doing what the Unconquered Sun wants me to do, I don't care. It's entirely worth it."

Godchaser stared at me incredulously, obviously wondering if I'd really said what she thought I had.

"Last but not least, I will thoroughly purge certain ugly words from my vocabulary! I will _never_ again refer to myself as a demon, damned, monster, Unclean or Anathema! If I require a descriptive term, I have plenty of more accurate ones to choose from. I _may_ call myself Solar Exalted, Twilight Caste, a Copper Spider... or Godchaser's Maker."

The moment I finished my list, I finally discovered the flaw in Godchaser's re-engineered "hover" function.

With an incoherent exclamation of joy, she whizzed up into the air and got herself stuck in the ceiling.

It took me more than three hours to get her down.


End file.
